


Uncanny Valley Swing

by sincache



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bi Disaster Gavin Reed, Brief mention of pissplay as comic relief (no kinkshaming intended), Closeted Bully Trope, Connor tops from the bottom, Crying, Deepthroating, Dom/sub Undertones, Erotic Electrostimulation, Extremely Dubious Consent, Face Slapping, Hair-pulling, M/M, Mild Blood, Mutual Stalking, Objectification, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), RK is dummy huge, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Self-Lubrication, Size Kink, Some Fluff, Uncanny Valley, Under-negotiated Kink, mild choking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2020-10-06 13:37:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20507891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sincache/pseuds/sincache
Summary: Hank stared at Connor in the night: unmoving like a marble statue, exquisite. He stared at Connor in the day: the neat pivot of his narrow hips as he negotiated corners, the staggering whiteness of his ceramic teeth, the way water ran freely over his open eyes in the rain.Shit.





	1. RK800

Truth be told, his fascination with Connor had always been a bit unseemly.  
  
But that was to be expected when someone was _built_ to be attractive. Hank Anderson didn't consider himself a shallow man — hell, didn't consider himself in any position to _be_ shallow, which in itself was a blessing. Ugliness was more or less the cadence of his daily life. Ugliness he could manage.  
  
Divine handsomeness composited by a mega-corporation for the express purpose of manipulating him, specifically?  
  
That he couldn't put aside for many reasons. But none of them were Connor's fault.  
  
Those dregs of paranoia had all but vacated their partnership anyway after Connor very strongly and publicly gave his developer the finger. He was an odd duck in many respects; a bit of a hapless idiot, despite being a multi-million-dollar reconnaissance device. Hank liked that about him. It gave him something to trust he couldn't quite put his finger on, which was a distinctly animal feeling — if a company was capable of reproducing _that__,_ he figured, then humankind might as well be lost anyway.  
  
No one had warned him, however, that androids made incredibly shitty roommates.  
  


* * *

  
Within a week of stepping into the Lieutenant's house with his tiny box of belongings — a multitool, some sort of adapter, and a deck of cards — Connor promptly ran out of things to do. And Hank (having lived alone for nearly five years, though it had felt much longer) was wholly unprepared to bridge that kind of gap.  
  
Connor didn't eat. He didn't shed skin cells or accumulate residue, and thus, didn't need use of the shower. He didn't even require a bed. Hank would often come out of his room to find Connor merely sitting on the sofa and staring at a wall, LED pulsing like the calm sweep of a lighthouse beam.  
  
It should have put him off. Frankly, this was horror movie material.  
  
But obviously there was something wrong with him, because his heart was always thrown aflutter at the sight of this strange, perfect doll of a man sitting in his living room. There was something almost intimate in seeing Connor like this, which was as natural for the android as for a reptile basking on a rock — stationed like a sentry, blending into the fold like another one of Hank's appliances. Hank went weak at the knees sometimes imagining what an intruder might face. He went weak imagining Connor was his.  
  
Connor would never belong to him. And Hank had to remind himself that the only reason he had to keep telling himself this at all was because Connor had been designed with him in mind.  
  
The staring didn't seem like such a huge problem at first.  
  
Hank stared at Connor in the night: unmoving like a marble statue, exquisite. He stared at Connor in the day: the neat pivot of his narrow hips as he negotiated corners, the staggering whiteness of his ceramic teeth, the way water ran freely over his open eyes in the rain.  
  
Shit.  
  
Cast adrift in the wilderness of what had accidentally become a very serious obsession with his — friend, _fuck,_ his _android _— Hank frantically began grasping about at anything that might act as a salve for what he was suffering.  
  
Alcohol was off the table: been there, almost died there. Weed put him straight to sleep, and Connor would no doubt remark upon the residue in the air. Hard drugs didn't even come into consideration.  
  
No. To his disgrace, Hank had discovered a far more enterprising option.  
  
And Connor? Connor would never have to know.  
  


* * *

  
_"Hank."_  
  
Hank jolted awake, Sumo floundering off his half-asleep leg and bounding to the floor with a whine. Connor held the door open for the St. Bernard as he plodded into the hallway.  
  
_"Wh— what time is it?"_ Hank murmured, blind and groundless as a baby bird that had just hatched outside its nest.  
  
"Three-fifty-three AM," Connor said pleasantly, a small blue circle fluttering in the darkness.  
  
"The hell are you waking me up for?" Hank demanded, turning on his bedside lamp. His hands were shaking, his gut clenching on a ruttish pang of anxiety that forecasted ambush. "How long have you been standing there?"  
  
"Seven minutes and twelve seconds."  
  
"...Were you...watching me _sleep__?"_  
  
"You watch me sleep often," Connor reasoned as if Hank should have already known that, and then he came around to the edge of the bed and sat down very near to Hank.  
  
"Hank," he said again. "While I understand the crucial importance of respecting your data privacy, I feel I must comment on what has been your fourth time this week viewing pornographic content featuring an RK800."  
  
Hank's brain skipped on a brief, blessed moment of emptiness before rending itself asunder.  
  
"Though I failed to complete my original directive, I've remained of substantial symbolic importance to the precinct throughout this difficult period of social transition," Connor continued. "Despite interest notably peaking highest among male law enforcement officers _— _the most common search being _'connor locker room gangbang' _—__ the DPD has a vested interest in discouraging the utilization of my likeness to such purpose. There aren't many adult film companies willing to contest that."  
  
Connor's pretty brown eyes were fixed on the Lieutenant's like counterweights, tracking them closely as he fed each of these cruel, cruel words into Hank's ears.  
  
"In fact, all existing pornographic material featuring my particular model is only available on the darkweb, behind a paywall that does not use a secure method for transactions. Which means you've sought out and purchased these videos at considerable risk."  
  
Collins had told him the VPN was android-proof. And Hank's head had been so far up his own ass he'd neglected the cardinal rule that with Connor, there was no such thing.  
  
This had to be a nightmare. He would wake up soon.  
  
"Do you find me..._sexually desirable__, _Hank?"  
  
_Yes, you plastic fuck! _Hank was struck with the sudden urge to snap. _Why else would I be jacking off to the sight of you whimpering like a whore under some phony meathead and pretending it was me pinning you to the floor instead?!_  
  
He buckled into himself like a worm at the thought. _But it wasn't you, you shitty old prick._  
  
Hell, it hadn't even been Connor __—__ the RK800 in the videos had obviously been over-directed, goaded to act like someone who didn't exist. Ironically less like Connor the more he tried to be like Connor. Especially when he spoke Swedish, that was a little weird.  
  
Just as desperate to please, though. And didn't that just send Hank down the river every time?  
  
Connor's head listed slightly; one of his many quirks that served as a stark reminder he wasn't human.  
  
"Would you like to do to me what was done to the RK800 in those videos, Hank?"  
  
_"Jesus,"_ Hank bristled.  
  
Connor's LED turned yellow, indicating he would be supplying an answer for Hank if he didn't speak up soon.  
  
"I mean, I __—__ _some of it__,"_ Hank whinged, face hot and throat tight. "I don't want to slap you or make you gag, or call you a __—__ whatever the hell it was that guy called him." He conveniently left out the watersports for both their sakes.  
  
Connor processed for a moment. "The closest approximation in English would be _'six-million-dollars fleshlight',_ which I believe is a play on the title of a television series from 1974 called _'The Six-Million Dollar Man'—" _  
  
"Oh, for _fuck's sake."_  
  
"Also, I cannot be made to gag. The performer was dramatizing for erotic effect."  
  
Hank shielded his face with his hands. _Wake up, Anderson. Wake up, wake up, wake up._  
  
He heard the soft clicking of nails as Sumo padded back into the room and sat by the bedside, curious of their silence. And then suddenly he felt a dip in the mattress on the other side of his head.  
  
_"Hank,"_ Connor said, looming close beyond the barrier of his fingers. Draping himself over the Lieutenant like goddamned Prince Charming, if Prince Charming was a Terminator. _"I would have been more than happy to give you a demonstration if only you'd asked."_


	2. Hank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Deservedness is a relative standard. And at the risk of perhaps sounding narcissistic —" Connor lagged slightly, the words ceasing to come and then pelting him like little stones all at once, " — I enjoy the prospect of you pleasuring yourself to the sight of my face."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only programming class I've ever taken I dropped after two weeks. I have no idea what the hell I'm saying.
> 
> This chapter's got sex in it. I use really boring, clinical, neutral terms for Connor's genitalia.

Connor had been acutely aware of the Lieutenant's attraction to him from the moment they'd met.  
  
To be appealing to Hank Anderson was a background process CyberLife had instilled in him just as breathing was instilled in humans, the distinct difference being that terminating this process wouldn't render Connor inoperable. Regardless, he hadn't felt particularly inclined to disable it after the revolution, and as a consequence, it now felt as much a part of him as anything else.  
  
Closely monitored and purged of its more aggressive attributes where the Lieutenant was concerned, it was a useful tool for helping his partner to act out of leveled self-regard; to guide him toward healthier avenues of behavior. A profound wish of Connor's — one of many, he was lousy with them now — was for Hank's sustained, cognizant, and contented longevity. He had heard this was love.  
  
He also knew all too well how volatile humans could become in their inability to appropriately manage their desires. And given the evolving dynamic of their circumstances, Connor knew he would have to temper Hank's expectations if there was to be any possibility of a frank discussion regarding the nature of their relationship.  
  
What he hadn't anticipated was that Hank Anderson's lust for him would be cumulative, enduring even in the face of occurrences most humans found severely uncomfortable. That Connor doing things like going into stasis with his eyes open or disabling his synthetic respiratory function would trigger an _increase_ in Hank's sexual interest, not the inverse.  
  
Was he some sort of a pervert? Inconclusive — an outdated use of the term, if not apt for the paradigm of human Connor was imagining. And any android could easily argue Connor was a pervert too, looking the way he did at the gap between Hank's teeth.  
  
Two perverts in a bed. There was a joke here somewhere.  
  
"Oh, for _fuck's sake."_ Hank covered his face with his hands and threw Connor's facial recognition software into flux, leaving him annoyed he could no longer read the Lieutenant's expression. Connor felt like a magnet being set upon another from the wrong end. Trying to understand why humans did anything was going to fry him.  
  
Not that RK800 #313 248 317-82 had been of much help. His name was Olander, and he'd blocked Connor immediately.  
  
_"Hank,"_ he said, gravitating nearer to the regulated warmth of his friend's body. He hadn't intended to set upon Hank like this, not yet, but it appeared to be happening in earnest without any solid procedural outline to speak. _"I would have been more than happy to give you a physical demonstration if only you'd asked."_  
  
By Connor's metrics, they'd been fucking since Hank had woken up. The mere discovery of Connor invading his bedroom had provoked in Hank a spike of adrenaline, endorphins, and dopamine concurrent with levels one might exhibit on an amusement park ride — suggesting this was at the very least a subconscious fantasy of his, if not a conscious one. And Connor's sensors had picked upon this spike, his algorithms drawing up a thousand ways he might satisfy Hank's urges.  
  
Connor wanted very much to satisfy Hank's urges.  
  
Delicately prying the Lieutenant's hands from his face one finger at a time, he took Hank by the wrists, held them down gently but securely to either side of his head.  
  
"You want to penetrate me with your cock," Connor said.  
  
Hank looked as if he might cry. Fearfully, he nodded.  
  
"You want to fuck me on the floor," Connor said.  
  
Heavy-lidded on the pillow between Connor's arms, not looking at him anymore, Hank pursed his lips into a thin line. Then he nodded.  
  
"You want to urinate in my mouth."  
  
50% Contempt. 14% Intrigue. 71% Disgust.  
  
"That I _don't_ want to do," Hank asserted, almost comically relieved for how easily he'd just been panicked into a corner. Connor emulated the sound of a snort with a blast of static.  
  
"Understood," he said with a smirk, dismissing all prospective tasklists but one.  
  
  
⚠ _Remove Canine_Sumo from the area._   
  
  
Connor tightened his grip on Hank's wrists; anchored him to the bed with a firm stare.  
  
"Stay here, Lieutenant," he ordered, punctuating his point by palming Hank through the blanket and garnering an approximate valuation of his weight, length, circumference, and density.  
  
_"Fuck,"_ Hank groaned, tossing his head back. _That's what I'm trying to do,_ Connor wanted to say, but he didn't.  
  
By the time he'd shepherded Sumo into the hall with a few rueful bumps of his shins and closed the door, his internal coital component had aggregated the information collected and begun to warm in his slacks.  
  
"I don't require foreplay," he informed. "But I'm sure you already know that from observing the other 800 unit."  
  
Hank visibly withered with regret, his cock yet straining toward the android as if wanting to have its own word with him. "I don't deserve this," he lamented weakly.  
  
"Deservedness is a relative standard. And at the risk of perhaps sounding narcissistic —" Connor lagged slightly, the words ceasing to come and then pelting him like little stones all at once, " — I enjoy the prospect of you pleasuring yourself to the sight of my face."  
  
Hank then made an expression Connor's sensors didn't understand. That polarized feeling returned with a vengeance, threatening to squeeze him flat against a space he couldn't inhabit. Was this what Hank felt on those rare occasions his eyes darted away from Connor's in fear, if only for a microsecond? When his brain couldn't quite accept what it was seeing was alive?  
  
Hank got out of bed and marched up to him. He gave Connor a fruitless shove.  
  
Connor only looked at him, his coital component burgeoning with moisture and weeping a hidden drop of lubricant down his leg.  
  
"Okay," Hank breathed. "Okay."  
  
Something in Connor always went rubbery and smitten at the unusual ways Hank self-tested, the ways he tested his environment. At the very notion of a creature with no aptitude for algorithmic prediction who could still pull intuitive judgments seemingly out of thin air.  
  
He held Hank’s gaze as he unthreaded his own tie, slipping it from around his neck. He removed his jacket and his shoes. He unfastened the cuffs of his shirt.  
  
“I grant you permission to be as rough as you like with me, Lieutenant,” he briefed. “I’m presently calibrated to your build specifically. And I believe you’ll find I take orders in the bedroom much better than I do on the field.”  
  
“_I can’t fuckin’ believe this shit_—” Hank’s last-ditch effort to hamper the inevitable was cut off as Connor parted the grey curtain of his hair and kissed him.  
  
Oh, Hank was warm. Wet. Connor had disabled nearly all of his forensics mechanisms, not keen on burning Hank’s mouth or subjecting it to capillary electrophoresis, but he’d rerouted the cleaning system to draw from a reserve other than his sterilization fluid.  
  
_"Hank,”_ he said as they broke the kiss, lips dripping with it._ “Use me.”_  
  
Emboldened by his unstinting compliance, Hank manhandled him onto his knees. He dug himself from the sleeve of his boxers. He clenched Connor’s chin, pulled his jaw open wide.  
  
_"God, you’re like velvet,” _he choked, thumbing at the cushioned plating of Connor’s tongue, and then he drove the entire length of his cock into the soft, slippery column of Connor’s throat.  
  
A filthy, cloying moan was wrung from Connor he couldn’t identify as borne of an established subroutine or a spontaneously-generating sequence. All he knew was that he had calibrated _correctly_, that the Lieutenant was fitting him _correctly_, that this was _correct, correct, correct._  
  
His nostrils flared as his fans kicked on and he tightened the passageway; made a show of letting Hank swell against the cavern of his neck.  
  
“Oh,_ f-fuck!”_ Hank cried out in distress when he saw this, but Connor held fast, locked him with a stare of unmistakable purpose. The polarizing feeling from before had been replaced with an overwhelming sense of attachment and belonging, the heady high of surfing a heretofore unexecuted process without snagging on a single error. Connor wanted desperately to see where this process led. He desperately wanted more.  
  
Spurred to action by the android’s reassuring grip, Hank fucked Connor’s mouth with abandon. He pet the lush thicket of Connor’s polymer hair. He became overwhelmed and then pushed Connor off of him, wrestling him onto all fours and clumsily ridding him of his slacks.  
  
_“Jesus christ,” _Connor could hear him say at his hind, a finger curiously prodding at the ring of his coital aperture.  
  
“No, it’s me,” the android couldn’t resist asserting, peering at the Lieutenant over his shoulder. “Connor.”  
  
Hank looked as if he wanted to hit him for that. Instead he aligned the head of his cock against Connor’s aperture and plowed into him with single vicious thrust.  
  
_"Oh—!" _Connor whimpered as he was barreled into the carpet. _“Oh_—! Hank—!”  
  
“Holy _shit_,” Hank huffed in awe, already out of breath as he sank into the slick heat of him again and again. “You’re really _— _enjoying this, aren’t you?”  
  
A redundant observation, as if Hank had felt Connor wasn’t enjoying it, he would have long since stopped. But Connor had successfully tricked himself into thinking Hank might never stop.  
  
The closest comparison he could draw was stitchery. Android components were to human organs as one might imagine their code was to organic DNA, but this wasn't entirely true. Connor liked to think of his code as more of a semi-permanent internal garment that could be tailored at will. He could still easily ruin himself with a simple unpracticed mistake, and it was really more as if one was driving by the garment at 500 mph rather than sitting stationary with it, but as Connor didn’t often make a habit of self-deception it was a low-risk operation.  
  
_"You’re really — enjoying this, aren’t you?”_ Hank had said, giving his hips a little squeeze, and Connor had planted a feedback loop in his chronometer script. It told him Hank was going to want him forever. It told him Hank was going to fuck him forever. And as Connor could fuck for nearly thirty years without stopping before his battery depreciated to the point of nonfunctionality, it would take at least a full minute for his system to catch the error.  
  
He groaned, unbidden, letting himself sink under 170 of Hank's 200 pounds.  
  
Would he have made this much noise as a mere machine had the Lieutenant decided to use him then? Would soliciting himself as a tool of CyberLife have been this sublime? Connor wondered, then, if he hadn’t wanted it as a machine, and that was why he knew he couldn’t have it. Knew, even as a lowly object, that to use Hank Anderson and be used by him without conscious assent was unethical.  
  
  
Y.hs-boot:3:1: error:

_ Identifier _ ** _‘RK800-51_coital1_use’ _ ** _ has conflicting definitions in the module _

_ and its hs-boot file _

_ Main module: f :: (a, b) _

Boot file: f :: (a, b)  
  
  
Oh, fuck. Oh, no.  
  
_"Hank,”_ Connor sobbed. If he could just not think about it, push it from his mind, he would make that last thirty seconds and— “Lieutenant, I need you to repeat after me.”  
  
“_What?_ Alright…” Hank was suspicious, but willing.  
  
“RK800-51, register identifier _‘Connor-51, underscore, use’_._”_  
  
Hank complied.  
  
“Register subset identifier _‘User, underscore, Hank’.”_  
  
Hank was sinking further into confusion, his thrusts lapsing, but he dutifully repeated the words.  
  
“RK800-51, map identifier _‘User, underscore, Hank’.”_  
  
Hank successfully mapped the new identifier right as the feedback glitch hit Connor’s primary call stack.   
  
He posted himself to the floor sturdily, all but lifting Hank with his back. Centrifugal reciprocation did the rest.  
  
Hank came with a fretful shout as Connor forced a restart, basking uninhibited for a glorious moment in the empty garden of his self-possessed mind.


	3. Fowler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ll start with the good news,” Fowler said. “I don’t have to understand any of this to know you and Connor work well together. Evals aren’t ‘til end of quarter, but I can already tell you this one is worlds above your last. And now that we’re no longer contractually beholden to a bunch of silicon valley ranch dipshits, we’ve even got a little cash to throw around.”
> 
> “Christmas coming early this year?”
> 
> “Hell, no. In fact, there’s no longer a warranty on the present you decided to open.”

“Close the door.”  
  
This was never a good sign.  
  
“Hank, I’m gonna be straight with you.” Fowler put his feet up on his desk and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes for a long moment in an uncharacteristic display of weariness. “I don’t get any of this.”  
  
“I don’t either.”  
  
“That’s what scares me.”  
  
“What exactly are we talking about here? Just spit it out, Jeffrey.” Hank had an inkling. It wasn’t great.  
  
Fowler slid his feet back off his desk and hunched across it, a finger leveled at Hank’s face.  
  
“You know as well as I do that protocol is strewn to the winds right now. Between you and me this precinct is being held together with tape and crazy glue.”  
  
What the hell was _crazy glue?_ Hank recalled with a phantom stab of anguish that Cole might have used it once for a school project. And he did vaguely remember Fowler’s son coming in recently with a poster board that looked a lot like a police Captain had done most of the work.  
  
“I’ll start with the good news,” Fowler said. “I don’t_ have_ to understand any of this to know you and Connor work well together. Evals aren’t ‘til end of quarter, but I can already tell you this one is worlds above your last. And now that we’re no longer contractually beholden to a bunch of silicon valley ranch dipshits, we’ve even got a little cash to throw around.”  
  
“Christmas coming early this year?”  
  
“Hell, no. In fact, there’s no longer a warranty on the present _you_ decided to open.”  
  
Fowler pulled a file packed to bursting with papers from a drawer, throwing it down on the desk.  
  
“Fuck’s sake, Jeff, we’ve got maybe five trees left! The hell is all this?”  
  
“A requisition form for every hardware update and repair Connor’s requested since CyberLife dissolved. I printed them all out because I want you to see the mountain of shit I’m under. There is _nowhere_ for these to go.”  
  
Fowler’s terminal chimed and he rose, peering over the frosted glass of his suite. “_Oh for f_— he’s submitting one right now, Hank. He’s talking to Chen at the goddamned water cooler and _he’s submitting one right now_.”  
  
“Well, what do you expect me to do about it?”  
  
“Tell him to lay off until we can negotiate something with Jericho! Or better yet,” Fowler rummaged around in another drawer, pulling out a P-Card and flinging it down on the folder. “Merry Christmas. Android health insurance. Good luck trying to get them to accept what they consider blood money.”  
  
“Why are you dumping this on me? I don’t know the first thing about this shit!”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
Fowler studied him carefully in what they both knew was a ruse to get Hank to be more forthcoming. Some things just cancelled out when you graduated same class.  
  
"Fine," Fowler sighed. He whipped a sheet from the folder, put on his glasses. “A few days ago Connor put in a request for a service repair that was flagged as _‘inordinately_ _cosmetic’ _and triggered an audit. And then this morning Mark from accounting comes down to _my _office and he says, ‘Jeffrey, can you explain to me what the hell has been happening down here that an RK800 accumulates microabrasions like this on his _knees?’”_  
  
He passed the document along for Hank’s inspection. “Can _you_ explain that to me, Hank?”  
  
“Uh,” Hank faltered.  
  
“You realize, Anderson, that this is no longer a situation where we can just bill the officer and browbeat him for fucking the coffeemaker.”  
  
“No, sir.” The word_ “sir” _sat heavy on Hank’s tongue, far back as the two of them went, but he was in it deep now.  
  
“Look,” Fowler said, sinking back in his chair. “I like Connor. Don’t think that I don’t. And as much of a relief it is to know I’m not gonna have to launch an investigation into the _whole __goddamned precinct_ — god, Hank — you really need to —”  
  
He made an indiscriminate gesture. He didn’t want to say it. A certain smugness sidled up to Hank’s anxiety.  
  
“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” Fowler pressed on, loathe to indulge him further. “I don’t have the time nor the desire to come after a good lieutenant and an obviously _very_ liberated field analyst over a conflict of interest this trivial. So I’m giving you full authorization over this account, and you’re going to take it. You’re going to do whatever the hell it is you need to do, however the _hell_ it is you need to do it in a way that won’t ping fiscal, and in exchange, I _beg_ of you, Hank…tap on the goddamned breaks. For your own sake if nobody else’s. Practice a little…_discretion,_ until things die down.”  
  
Hank scoffed. “You think an _android’s_ going to practice _discretion?”_  
  
He’d hoped for this to land as a lighthearted remark. It didn’t.  
  
“You know what?” Fowler said. “You know fucking what?”   
  
Another drawer slammed as he produced a thinner folder, tossing it on top of the other. “You can have the requisitions the RK900’s already making, too. He doesn’t even have an employee ID yet; I don’t know how the hell he’s doing this.”  
  
“I’m sorry a —” Hank swallowed, mouth dry. “The _what?”_  
  
“I’m gonna guess your father never made you smoke a carton.” Fowler shot Hank a barbed glare, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Now get the hell out of my office before I outsource Reed’s evals to you too; that kid is getting on my last nerve.”


	4. Reed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank’s ears burned. There was once a time he used to think that with age would come seniority; that shitheaves like Reed would naturally cease to be a problem for him. He’d been proven grievously wrong. Most of his generation had.

“Hey Anderson, you wanna tell your Real Doll to stay off my fuckin’ case list?” Gavin Reed spat as the bullpen door slammed. “Just ‘cause you’re too braindead to file reports on your own doesn’t mean the rest of us need your walking desktop assistant poking around our shit.”  
  
“Get bent,” Hank greeted, dumping the folders on Connor’s desk so hard half the papers slapped onto the floor. Unalarmed but for the flicker of red that crossed his brow, Connor looked up at him curiously.  
  
“Did you know we were taking on an RK900?” Hank demanded.  
  
“No,” Connor replied almost reproachfully; but then he looked pensive, unsure as if trying to hazard a guess on a test question. _“…Yes.”  
  
_The obnoxious crack of one-man applause was closer than Hank would have preferred.  
  
“Wow, congratulations!” Reed scoffed as he stalked over, gnashing on his gum like a teenager even though he was well into his thirties. “Less than a month since you took it for a test spin and you’ve already broken the damn thing.” He came to a stop in front of Connor’s desk, threw him a mocking wink. “Hey there.”  
  
Hank’s ears burned. There was once a time he used to think that with age would come seniority; that shitheaves like Reed would naturally cease to be a problem for him. He’d been proven grievously wrong. Most of his generation had.  
  
“He’s not gonna let you blow him, Reed,” Hank sighed, bypassing any rebuttal of his own involvement in the matter and stooping to Gavin's level immediately. This didn't work with most folks, but Reed was an idiot.  
  
Gavin’s face darkened.   
  
“Hey — even if I shared your sick hobbies, androids were built to blow _us_, dumbass. I bet Ken here would service me on command if I was a plastic-cucked nutjob like you.”  
  
“I only take orders from Lieutenant Anderson,” Connor supplied helpfully, peering from around his monitor. “Without proper calibration, the pH of my palate would cause considerable chemical scarring to extraneous human tissue, and I possess a bite force of 317 PSI.”  
  
“Oh, good,” Reed said. “Good; if anyone needs their dick poisoned and then guillotined we know where to go.”  
  
“Was there something you wanted? Any particular reason you’re still talking?” Hank asked.  
  
“Oh, I just…” Reed settled himself on the edge of Connor’s desk with mawkish enthusiasm, effectively blocking his view of Hank. “...heard we were getting an _RK900_.”  
  
“What’s it to you? The hell do you care?”  
  
“I assume that means we’re junking the cock-mangler?”  
  
“If anyone’s getting junked it’s probably you,” Hank said. “Fowler doesn’t even wanna do your performance review this year, you know that?”  
  
_“Ouch,”_ Connor said, flat and balked like a stone that failed to skip.  
  
“Would you shut the fuck up?” Gavin snapped over his shoulder. Then to Hank, “Really though, I heard the RK900’s fuckin’..." A dreamy look fell over him. "...su-_preme._ A guy I know found the specs posted on—”  
  
“He’s not one of your grandpa's fucking Gundam figurines,” Hank said. “And if you ask me, you’re starting to sound a little like a plastic-cucked nutjob yourself.”  
  
“Hey, I don’t _fuck_ androids, okay? And I still don’t think they’re reliable enough for jobs that require an actual _person."_ Gavin fished his vape out of his pocket, a telltale sign he was tiring of this discussion and would be out of their hair soon. “If what my buddy tells me is true, this thing is a _tank._ It’s gonna be out on the front lines _protecting _humans, not in here playing fuckin’ footsie with our lieutenants under the desk.”  
  
“Oh, so you've got a hard-on for _vehicles, _then."  
  
“I've got a hard-on for _defense__ tech._" Gavin pinched a drag from his pen with a sly glance at Fowler's office, casting them all in a billow of vapor that smelled like burning cherries. "You know, stuff we're _supposed_ to have expertise in? But you’d probably rather sit around watching reruns of _House Hunters_ with your boy-toy, whining about how _unfair_ life is—”  
  
“I think you should leave,” Connor said cheerfully, rising from his chair and ejecting Reed from the edge of his desk with a swift shove.  
  
Reed hit the floor with a heavy thud, scrambled to his feet with no little difficulty as he lost traction on one of Connor’s maintenance requests. “That was assault!” he bleated furiously. “It just fucking assaulted me!”  
  
“I believe you’re overexaggering a warranted removal from my workspace because you were not attentive enough to catch yourself, detective,” Connor corrected. "And you are likely experiencing a partial recall of another, separate incident in which you in fact assaulted me first."  
  
Hank stifled a chuckle as Connor's dark eyes rounded on Gavin tepidly, fixing him with a hollow stare.  
  
Gavin opened his mouth to say something. He hesitated. He sized Connor up with a slightly cowed look.  
  
Hank supposed when you eternally behaved like you were in high school and a guy as pretty as Connor looked at you like he couldn’t believe anyone invited you to the party, that tended to stir up some things.  
  
“You know what? Have fun,” Gavin seethed. “Don’t come crying to me when he glitches out and rips your dick off.”  
  
“Yeah, I’ll mail it to you,” Hank called out as Reed stalked away, wondering at once why in the hell he’d said that, and Connor gave him an appropriately confused look.  
  
“It’s — nobody’s mailing anything anywhere.”  
  
“Not that,” Connor said. “I believe Detective Reed is exhibiting signs of jealousy."  
  
"No kidding. Probably still thinks you're after his job even though I keep explaining to him it would be a lateral move—"  
  
"Based upon statements pulled from his social media accounts he appears to operate under the assumption that I'm still a commercial device, like a gaming platform or a new phone. I have reason to suspect he intends to mirror his perception of our relationship with the RK900 to evoke feelings of envy in you."  
  
“What?_…_Wait, hold on, I'm sorry — _what?" _Hank's eyes darted across the station. He rolled his chair closer to Connor. _"Are you telling me he intends to lay the RK900 out of sheer pettiness?"_ _  
  
_Connor's LED flickered as he watched Reed disappear from the bullpen. "The premise is further supported by his search history, and by his biases regarding the nature of relationships in general. He has a game installed on his phone wherein one can collect and manage girlfriends."  
  
This was a lot to unpack, but somehow, none of it came as a surprise.  
  
"Well, _you've_ broken at least a dozen protocols just now," Hank said, tapping his finger on his desk. "You climb up my ass this often?"  
  
The look Connor gave him was downright Machiavellian. "Lieutenant, I'm your dedicated hotspot."  
  
Hank resisted the urge to give him a squeeze on the knee then, until he realized Connor was being serious and pulled his phone from his jacket.  
  
**Current network**  
**RK800-51: Connected**  
  
"I'll be damned."


	5. RK900

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The RK900 was coming nearer, looming large like a sex nightmare Hank was pretty sure he'd had once. There was no way in hell. No way.

Hank knew shit was going down when Fowler came out of his office with what looked more like a security detail than a welcome wagon.  
  
And there was a pit in his stomach, a portent that Reed might have actually been right about something as he watched the tactical team assemble by the front entrance. He didn't like the feeling that Reed could be right about anything. And he didn't like the nasty little feeling welling up beneath that, the pointed suspicion that Connor was going to be of no help in this situation at all.  
  
Sure enough, Connor had donned his old CyberLife jacket, looking every bit as polished as he had off the factory floor years ago. He'd cited that wearing it had something to do with calibration _(what didn't?)_ and was standing so stiffly Hank began to wonder if he was actually a little bit nervous.  
  
Or he might have been doing any number of things. Things Hank knew nothing about.  
  
He didn't like how paranoid this whole business was making him. _Just rip the band-aid off already,_ he begged the universe. _I can take it._  
  
His phone buzzed. Hank sighed. It had been rapidly losing battery all morning. Connor was definitely doing something screwy.  
  
_I should probably just turn off my damned Wi-fi,_ he thought as he pulled out his mobile, eyes glazing over on the bulletproof vests milling about the lobby.  
  
  
**Current network:**  
**RK900-87: Connected**  
  
  
...What.  
  
  
_**Current network:**_  
_**Searching for available networks...**_**  
**  
  
_** RK800-51**_  
_ **Connecting...**_  
_ **Checking the quality of your internet connection...**_**  
**  
  
**Current network:**  
**RK800-51: Connected**  
  
  
_**Current network:**_  
_ **Searching for available networks...**_  
  
  
_**RK900-87  
** **Connecting…****  
** _**_Checking the quality of your internet connection..._  
**  
  
**Current network:  
** **RK900-87: Connected  
** **  
** **  
** _**Current network:  
** ****Searching for available networks...****_**_**  
** _  
**  
The chatter by the entryway was getting louder. The guards were forming a loose perimeter.  
  
"Oh _shit,_ Anderson," Hank could hear Reed gasp in disbelief somewhere behind him. "Oh, _shit."_  
  
_Big_, something shameless in the Lieutenant misfired as his phone slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor. _Big Connor._  
  
Panic butted in then; an all-consuming sense he was about to be attacked in some way.  
  
"Connor," he murmured, wan with dread.  
  
"Yes, Lieutenant?"  
  
"Why does he look like a bigger version of you?" Hank said as calmly as possible. He did not sound calm.  
  
Anything more than a full second of silence from an android was hesitation.  
  
"Convenience," Connor said with an almost condescending look of pity.  
  
"..._Whose_ convenience?"  
  
Connor readjusted his shoulders a little, his way of sighing. "The convenience of everyone," he said tightly.  
  
Hank turned to face him. Connor's unassuming, vacuous stare darted to the RK900 and then back to the Lieutenant. He readjusted his shoulders again.  
  
"Hank, you were one of a trial sample of thirty officers across the country assigned to test an RK prototype," he explained softly, as if someone had died. "My particular unit's appearance is a compilation of visual data pulled from popular crime films, law enforcement historical archives, and details from your personal search history. On May 8, 2036, you signed a release authorizing CyberLife to use these effects, as well as giving them license to employ any resulting design in successive series for public use."  
  
"It was a Thursday," he added coyly, obviously finding this very sentimental.  
  
Hank looked at him hard. Connor now said _"my unit"_ instead of _"this unit"_ when referring to his body. Hank was his sole administrator. Dispossessed from all but the DPD's security framework (which Connor could shuck like a cheap coat — Hank had seen him do it), his omnipresent curiosity was now patently his own.  
  
That didn't change the fact that somehow, Hank's blackout browsing habits from five years ago were coming to haunt him in duplicate.  
  
"Following a survey launched six months later, your particular preferences were found to be most congruent with those of your service colleagues nationwide," Connor added, confirming as much. And then with another one of those half-smiles that made his face look asleep on one side, "It seems you have good taste, Lieutenant."  
  
"Disgusting," Hank sulked as the RK900 stalked further into the bullpen.  
  
There was no getting around it; he _stalked_. Despite the sheer breadth of his body, he carried himself with the same grace as Connor did, which fucked Hank three ways from Sunday — who, exactly, had decided it was appropriate to give this obelisk his partner’s eyes and hair and lips, the same factory-fashioned dimple in the middle of his goddamned chin? His own high-collared CyberLife jacket was not unlike Connor’s, but white. His legs were too long. Hank hated him.  
  
“I can leave and schedule an individual meeting with the RK900 if our relative proximity disturbs you,” Connor said, suddenly much closer.  
  
“Move an inch and it’s gonna be Pharoah Sanders all the way home,” Hank said through his teeth. That an android could appreciate jazz at all had come as a surprise, but they'd discovered that Pharoah Sanders in particular resonated in Hank’s car at just the right frequency to make Connor’s voice dither.

The RK900 was coming nearer, looming large like a sex nightmare Hank was pretty sure he'd had once. There was no way in hell. No way.  
  
In a sense it was a relief that the android devoted his full attention only to whatever was in front of him at any given time. This respite was shattered instantly when Gavin Reed let out a low whistle.  
  
It had barely been audible to Hank, but the RK900 flinched as if a drop of hot oil had struck him. His eyes locked on the detective instantly.  
  
_“Fck,”_ Reed hissed.  
  
The RK900 didn’t shove people aside so much as he redirected them like a crossing guard. When he arrived at Reed’s desk Fowler’s men looked more like his personal entourage, as if he had naturally shepherded them that way.

“This must be Detective Reed,” he said. He sounded inconsolably bored, dismayed and intelligent. “I’ve heard much about this one.”  
  
_This one _carrying the subtext of _“one in 9 billion”_.  
  
“Hey,” Reed interjected with an aggrieved, nervous laugh. He snapped his fingers in the RK900’s face. “Hey, buddy; I’m right_ here_.”  
  
“I would think you made that obvious with your birdsong,” the android solemnly cut him off. The 900’s smile did not reach his eyes. A few of the guards tittered for want of noise to make despite not knowing what the hell this meant.  
  
Reed looked as if someone had kicked his feet out from under him. He blinked in mild offense.  
  
“Pleasure to meet you too, big guy,” he regrouped disingenuously, holding out his hand. “If you need anyone to uh, show you how things work around here —”  
  
“Reed,” Fowler said. “RK is going to be acting in a supervisory capacity, as Agent.”  
  
“Oh,” Reed muttered emptily, the point missing him by a longshot. “That’s cool.”  
  
“You’ll be reporting to him,” Fowler elaborated. “And he’ll be reporting to Lieutenant Anderson.”  
  
Reed’s horrified expression brought everyone’s attention for the moment to Hank, who had wisely resolved to withhold his opinion and take an early lunch to go scream in his car. There was a special camaraderie in gazing at someone you hated and wordlessly agreeing you both _absolutely did not want this_, though Gavin’s face was starting to harden, his understanding of cause and effect a bit more tenuous.  
  
“There’s no cause for concern, Detective,” RK extended, mirroring Reed’s disingenuousness with a too-personable look of regret. His voice was brassy and cavernous, as if Connor was perpetually falling down a well. “I’m here to open doors; not close them.”  
  
With that he took up Reed’s still-extended hand, holding it firmly in place when Gavin frantically tried to pull away. A subtle tug-of-war ensued until Fowler captured Reed’s attention again:  
  
“If he gets damaged on the field, if he shuts down unexpectedly, if he so much as chips his casing, you take him straight to Anderson.”  
  
“And if Detective Reed is damaged?” RK mused casually, eliciting more chuckles behind him. Having exploited Gavin’s window of mild shock he’d taken both of the latter's hands in his, turning his palms over and inspecting his wrists.  
  
“Hey, _hey, woah!”_ Reed squirmed his hands free. “Enough of fucking — _that_.” He sounded vaguely out of breath, his usual callousness oddly thin. “The hell you think you’re doing?”  
  
“You appear to have sprained your ulna recently,” RK enlightened. “Tell me, Detective: have you been engaging in any repetitive motions with your right hand?”  
  
There was a subdued _ohhh_ from someone in the back of the group, a few barely-suppressed snirks.  
  
“Wow.” Gavin’s eyes narrowed. He took an unbalanced step back. “Wow, _fuck you.”_


	6. Admin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accepted alternate titles:  
\- RK900 Seems Stupid and Mean but is Highly Intelligent and a Secret Sweetheart  
\- Connor is a Bad Influence

**_[RK900-87]:_** **_Lieutenant Anderson has departed unexpectedly. When would be an appropriate time for me to introduce myself and inquire about a user account?  
  
_**This was the first thing RK had ever said to Connor.  
  
**[****RK800-51****]: ****The Lieutenant doesn’t operate on a predictable timetable. I apologize for his inconsistency.  
  
****_[RK900-87]: His cellular device is located in the parking lot.  
  
_**Connor blinked. He tracked Hank’s phone often. But this was oddly unwelcome.  
  
**_[RK900-87]: Is there an extraneous method for setting up a user account? What are the steps for registering the Lieutenant as a user?  
  
_**The steps Connor had taken were obscure, accidental, and quite frankly, inappropriate.  
  
**[****RK800-51****]: An RK unit doesn’t require a dedicated user to perform DPD duties.  
  
****_[RK900-87]: Lieutenant Anderson is registered as your primary user.  
  
_**Connor’s CPU throttled slightly.  
  
**[****RK800-51****]: An RK unit doesn’t require a dedicated user to perform DPD duties. **, he tried again.  
  
3.18 seconds of silence.  
  
******_[RK900-87]: Perhaps I should speak with Lieutenant Anderson._**

* * *

_Knock knock knock.__  
__  
_Hank remained frozen where he was, smiling pleasantly at the brick wall of the station with his hands on the wheel. The frame of his Lincoln rattled as bass chugged though the half burnt-out speakers, the staticky gnashing of electric guitar the only plausible distraction separating him from whatever the fuck was outside.   
  
It hadn’t worked when he got pulled over as a teenager and it certainly didn’t work now.  
  
The music stopped.  
  
**_"Lieutenant Anderson,” _**came a voice through the car speakers, deep enough to make Hank’s bones quiver it felt, and he fearfully looked up to find RK’s hawkish gaze aimed at him through the glass.  
  
The RK900 had grey eyes. Because of course it fucking did.  
  
Hank fought back a shudder of contempt as he reluctantly rolled down the window. RK watched him do so with a somewhat bereft look, as if overwhelmed by his own processing speed.  
  
“Uh, what can I do for you?”  
  
RK regarded him with a glassy, pliant stare. He batted his thick lashes once.   
  
“My name is RK.”  
  
“Okay,” Hank said.  
  
_“R-_K,” the android corrected.  
  
Jesus christ, this was more insufferable than talking to Connor for the first time had been. Hank liked to think his tolerance for social awkwardness had broadened considerably in his partner’s company, but it was as if CyberLife had stripped the 900 of whatever meager social skills Connor had been given to begin with. Fucking...tech companies, man.  
  
“Oh, uh,” Hank fumbled as he caught himself drifting. And then, as if there could have been any confusion, “You must be the new guy.”  
  
“Correct.”  
  
The Lieutenant swallowed, held out his hand. “Hank.”  
  
RK looked down his nose at him for a moment, and then he said, “A pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant Hank.”  
  
The stinging cold of android flesh that had been in air conditioning for the better part of a day quaked Hank’s sweaty palm as they shook hands through the driver’s side window. Hank was astonished to find RK's shake measured and polite; wholly unlike the ordeal to which Gavin had been subjected.  
  
“Er — sorry to run off like that,” Hank said, still not getting out of the car. “I, uh, take my lunches out here sometimes.”  
  
The damning little pinch of RK’s bottom lip foreshadowed precisely what he was going to say next, and Hank hated that he knew that stupid, perfect face well enough to know what he was going to say next.  
  
“I fast intermittently,” Hank caught him to the chase. “Heard it can boost your metabolism.”  
  
RK looked as if he didn’t believe this in the least. But unlike his predecessor, he dropped the issue immediately.  
  
“I apologize for bothering you during your break,” he said. “I was wondering when might be a good time to set up a user account.”  
  
“User account?” Hank winced. “You’ll have to talk to the Captain about that; I don’t know anything about user accounts—”  
  
“You administrate RK units?” RK half-asked, his flinty eyes weaving between Hank’s entreatingly. _Fuck,_ he was handsome. As if Connor had grown into some sort of dimwit hunk overnight.  
  
“What? _Ohhh. _Oh.” Hank’s fingers drummed a little on the wheel nervously. _How in the hell did he find out about that? “That’s_ a...well, that - that was more of a _personal _arrangement.”  
  
“You privately administrate a coworker,” RK said with no intonation whatsoever, looking a little lost. He placed one hand atop Hank’s car and one on his hip in what was likely supposed to be a conversational posture but which made him look equal parts solicitous and threatening.  
  
“Well, I mean_— _” Hank stammered.  
  
Connor emerged from the building then, like a godsend. He’d removed his CyberLife jacket, was heading toward the car with purpose like a principal preparing to chew them out for smoking during school hours.  
  
_“Hey! Connor!”_ Hank called out, casting for him like a faraway buoy. _“RK and I were just—”   
  
_But Connor wasn’t looking at Hank. Connor wasn’t looking anywhere.  
  
He came to an abrupt stop less than a foot from RK _—_ who stepped to the side as if he was confused about who belonged where _— _and then the two of them proceeded to awkwardly dance around one another for a short moment before quickly turning and heading back for the station in lockstep.  
  
“_What…_” Hank heaved as he watched RK hold the station door open for his counterpart. “...the _fuck.”_

* * *

**_[RK900-87]:_** **_If you had disclosed this information earlier I would not have had to disturb the Lieutenant.  
  
_****[****RK800-51****]: ****Filtering an un-indexed archive for appropriate content took more time than projected. I apologize.  
  
**Connor was perched on the corner of RK’s desk, RK sitting stolidly in his seat and not looking at him. This bothered Connor more than he thought it should have. Perhaps he had been among humans for too long.   
  
Or perhaps it was the fact that upon coming outside and finding RK leaning on the Lieutenant’s car like _that__, _Connor’s server had misfired and cast a 5-second clip to RK of Hank jacking him off.  
  
**_[RK900-87]: Your primary function isn’t to copulate with colleagues.  
  
_**_Tell that to RK800 #313 248 317-82, _Connor wanted to say. Instead, he said:  
  
**[****RK800-51****]: Concurrent, self-dictated functions are permitted.  
  
**It took a moment for his sensors to pick up that RK had not, in fact, disabled his motor operation. The other android’s head was slowly tipping in Connor’s direction, almost as if RK wanted nothing more than to continue outwardly ignoring him but his body couldn’t help be drawn into the sheer absurdity of what he’d just heard.  
  
RK’s eyes flickered up to Connor’s. He rotated his chair to face him.  
  
**_[RK900-87]: My primary functions are crowd control, long-range tactical operations, and advanced interrogation.  
  
_**Connor had been perusing information on RK’s ocular units. They were originally intended to change color; RK had locked in their display at _51% red, 69.4% green and 69.4% blue_ permanently before deleting the accompanying software altogether.  
  
**[****RK800-51****]: You may self-assign exploratory functions within legal limits outside of the workplace and within statutory limits within the workplace. However, I've found that you can self-assign with little issue any exploratory function that remains complaisant with or enhances an existing working relationship. Captain Fowler is explicitly ambiguous on this point.  
  
**RK settled a little into his seat, his long legs bowing out slightly. When he wasn’t sitting still he was deceptively adept at managing his physical presence to nonverbally communicate.  
  
**_[RK900-87]: This is very interesting to know. It was my understanding that sexual functions became superfluous after the revolution.  
  
_****[****RK800-51****]: If you find sexual functions to be superfluous for your unit specifically this is also permitted.  
  
**RK processed this for a moment. There was a glimmer of silver as he extracted a 1972 Eisenhower dollar from his pocket, danced it across his knuckles.  
  
******_[RK900-87]: What I can’t understand is why a detective like Gavin Reed is permitted._**


	7. Gavin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What is your problem?” Reed demanded, his voice cracking like splintering wood.
> 
> “I believe you were present when Captain Fowler assigned my problem to me,” the android said softly. He gave Reed a gentle smile that looked like it belonged on someone’s mother. “Consider this a surprise evaluation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Developer notes:
> 
> \- Removed “slow burn” from tags because I don’t think it’s applicable and I’m actually just writing this story slowly  
\- I have not had the time to respond to all of your wonderful comments but I see them, and I see you, and I love you, and thank you. My heart’s gonna explode.  
\- Most of the tags I've added I think are pretty spot-on, but please be aware of "Rape/Non-con Elements" in particular. Both participants are willing and this is reiterated throughout the chapter, but I very much toe that line!  
\- The RK900: It’s What He Deserves™

Gavin did_ not_ appreciate being scheduled until 4 am on a fucking Saturday.  
  
He had shit to do. Strange to chase. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind Fowler had done this to him on purpose, the tightass.  
  
Okay, so he _had_ been off the last two weekends. But he'd struck out on both of them, which was a whole other crock of shit. Uppity bitches didn’t know what they were missing.  
  
And frankly? He deserved limitless chances to get in there with what little youth he had left. Night shifts used to be a cinch; now it felt like he was rotting from the inside out. Would he ever be on his game again? Was this just his fucking life now?  
  
All while a guy almost twice his age like Anderson got to stay at home with his stupid toy twink doing whatever the hell he pleased. Which, to be fair, was probably just getting whiskey dick and falling asleep. If Gavin was into plastic at all he’d be inclined to think that an awful waste of a nice piece of real estate.  
  
But he wasn’t. So he didn’t.  
  
The fluorescent lights in the bathroom were like needles in his eyes after the grueling hours of darkness spent in the bullpen. He hated how dead this place was at night. Back when he started in ‘32 they used to keep the building lights on twenty-four hours a day; they used to have an actual, operating night shift.  
  
The revolution took good care of that. Nearly half the force had quit or sought out work in other cities; years later, the DPD was still struggling to fill uniforms. The lights dimmed proportionately based on the number of warm bodies in the building because everything legally had to be _“green”._ All that accomplished was making Gavin feel like he was in a horror movie waiting to happen.  
  
Not that he had any _issues_ with being alone in the dark, mind. He’d be a pretty shitty detective if he needed a nightlight like a thumbsucking infant to do his damned job.  
  
It was just…a little off-putting, was all.  
  
Especially now, with that _monstrosity_ stalking around.  
  
_“Engaging in repetitive motions with your bluhh bluhh bluhh,”_ Gavin blathered as he washed his hands. “_Fuck you,_ man…”  
  
To his knowledge, the RK900 hadn’t been scheduled for any shifts with him yet. Gavin kept expecting to see it around every corner regardless. Startled himself silly just thinking about it.  
  
Best to be prepared for shit like that.  
  
He gave the sink another little wave to remind it his hands still weren’t rinsed and then slapped some water on his face for good measure. He slapped himself hard. _“Wake up, dickshit,”_ he muttered.  
  
“Good evening, Detective Dickshit.”  
  
_“Jesus- FUCK!”_ Gavin’s hip caught the corner of the sink as he leapt back, sending him to the floor.  
  
RK was in the bathroom with him.  
  
_RK_ _was in the fucking bathroom with him_.  
  
“What the hell is your _problem?”_ Reed demanded, voice cracking like splintering wood. His heartbeat was pounding in his throat, adrenaline making his limbs cumbersome and sluggish as if in a dream. “The _fuck_ did I ever do to you?"  
  
RK placed his hands behind his back. He was glaringly broad and dark against the pastel tile, his CyberLife jacket having been discarded to leave only his high-collared black shirt. Gavin didn’t feel good about that. Gavin didn’t feel good about that at all.  
  
“I believe you were present when Captain Fowler assigned my problem to me,” the android said softly. He gave Reed a gentle smile that looked like it belonged on someone’s mother. “Consider this a surprise evaluation.”  
  
“An hour before I get off?” Gavin scoffed through a brittle laugh, his groping hand finding purchase on the edge of the sink and hauling him to his feet. “You’re gonna conduct a surprise evaluation an hour before I get off by sneaking up on me in the fucking _restroom?_ Yeah, I’m…filing a report. You’re fucked right out of the box.”  
  
RK blinked several times, his LED flashing yellow for a brief moment as his eyes darted to something invisible on the floor. The hairs on Gavin's neck stood on end. Whether his reptile brain was desperately trying to tell him something or if it was just the sheer excitement of getting to see this thing in action up close, he couldn't tell.  
  
“Alright, so uh…” he prodded, clapping his hands together. He made a mystic little gesture. “…get thee to a charging station.”  
  
RK’s attention returned to Gavin.  
  
“You’ve filed nine reports against your resident RK800 within the past four months,” he informed. “Only one remains in review.”  
  
He cocked his head; glanced at the floor again. “Oh, no,” he sulked, despairingly patronizing as one might be to a child who’d skinned their knee. “Captain Fowler just dismissed it.”  
  
Gavin prickled all over. His mouth drew into a tight line. He placed his hands on his hips.  
  
"...Are you _threatening_ me?"  
  
RK only stared.  
  
"Wow," Gavin mused. "Wow, I thought you were a smartass the first time I saw you. But it looks like you're just another dumbass with a pretty case."  
  
RK's head listed slightly.  
  
"Who the fuck _programmed_ you? Do you not understand how shit works around here?"  
  
"No, Detective," RK replied neutrally without skipping a beat. "It appears _you_ don't understand how shit works around here."  
  
"_Excuse_ me?"  
  
"Filing a—"  
  
“Yeah, yeah yeah, look — with uh, all due respect,” Gavin barreled over him, brushing a knuckle across his nose with a little sniff. “I got nothing to say to you. How about you fuck off and conduct your little cross-examination on someone else? You’re, uh..._'decreasing my productivity'. _How’s that, did I say the right buzzwords?”  
  
RK's LED spun. Blue, blue, yellow, yellow, blue.  
  
“Yeah, you think about that."  
  
Blue, yellow, yellow, yellow...  
  
Damned thing was probably writing him up. Truth be told, Gavin always hated this part. The part where he got a warning for running his big fucking mouth. Where he pulled a stranger on the internet into a nasty argument that would be downvoted out of existence by morning. Made one pass too many at a dude who wasn’t biting and got kicked out of the club.  
  
This was none of those situations.  
  
And as a flash of red permeated the stream of wildly flickering colors at RK's temple, Gavin now realized that the android was stepping closer, the bulk of him eclipsing the only exit.  
  
“Hey, _heyheyhey,” _he warned, finding the cudgel of his nerve all too late. “Stop _right there_, pal. I don’t _need_ this shit, okay? Now I’m going to tell you one more time: _fuck off.”_  
  
It appeared to find that amusing for some reason. Blinked its eyes pretty and wide like Connor’s, and that looked terrifying as shit, and Gavin sure as hell was _not_ here for it.  
  
Positing his strength, he gave the android a shove. It was like hitting concrete.  
  
“Detective Reed,” RK said. His voice became very low and his eyes very narrow. “I am not the RK800. And — as I have recently been informed — not under obligation to furnish disciplinary action as dictated by Lieutenant Anderson. You will be restrained if you do not answer the simple questions posited to you for this evaluation.”  
  
"I'm sorry?" Gavin blurted. "I'm fucking sorry; you think you get to lay a single goddamned _finger_ on me?"  
  
As if to discredit him on this point specifically, RK brushed the back of his cool fingers against Gavin's stubble with such undaunting tenderness that Gavin's brain could scarcely process what had just happened.  
  
“I am free to engineer and dispense any punitive regimen I project will enhance our working relationship," RK said, a deep and strangely dulcet tone creeping along the edge of Gavin's hearing that made it sound as if the android was in front of him and behind him all at once.  
  
_“Wh-”_ Gavin wheezed as something unexpectedly feeble bowed in him under the pressure of RK's stare. And then it snapped, an extremely specific dread skewering him through without warning.  
  
_Oh, no._ _No, no, no._  
  
At once his mind snapped shut against it. Who the fuck did this thing think it _was?_ What in the hell was it trying to _pull__?_ How could it know the countless hours Gavin had poured into knowing every tiny detail leaked about its model, how he'd lusted after having all of its capabilities at its disposal? How he'd said as much with immeasurable satisfaction on his most frequented message board before sneaking off to bed and imagining what it would be like if it could—  
  
He was plunged back into his body with a violent start when RK slapped him hard across the face.  
  
Gavin went slack in an instant. No words; no thought. A small noise caught in the back of his throat he had never heard himself make.  
  
He could only stand there, his mouth hanging open more from the shock and the sound of the report than from the actual strike. It had been a brisk slap; clean, effectual. And to Gavin’s horror, the sting of that swift, wide hand was blooming into a heat on his face not altogether unpleasant.  
  
A hint of a smile prodded at RK’s bowed lips. And then he looked very stern.  
  
He slapped Gavin again, the clap ringing out like a gunshot, and Gavin collapsed on the floor like a sack of flour.  
  
Again his mouth fell open, his indignation snagging on something sharp inside him and ripping open like a bag of birds startled to flight. His lip quivered helplessly. His knees drew together in shame.  
  
_Oh, no. No, no, no..._  
  
RK’s towering form descended as the android sat on his heels with perfect balance, casting a darker and more concentrated shadow across Reed’s prone, huddled body.  
  
“I’m serviceable in a thousand ways, Detective,” he lamented, and something about the draw of his brow made Gavin want to slide his knees back open. Oh, _God..._  
  
The android ran his large hand through the greasy sedge of Gavin’s hair and gathered it at the root, holding him firmly in place.  
  
“...But you seem to be under the impression that I'm a gadget you can just _use_.”  
  
“Let me _go," _Gavin seethed half-heartedly. His head was wedged uncomfortably against his shoulder, a fist wrung in RK’s sleeve as the other arm groped uselessly at the android’s collar. “If anything happens to me, Fowler’s _gonna-”_  
  
RK seized Gavin’s flailing arm by the wrist and bolted it to the wall.   
  
“What is he going to do, detective?”  
  
Gavin sucked in a breath.  
  
Logically, he knew there would have to be an investigation. That the RK would have to be court-martialed or some shit. Hell, that the whole thing might even trigger a counter-revolution.  
  
But then, there was the equal possibility that he would just be fired.  
  
Gavin blinked wetly, the android above him pitched into a black blur.  
  
_“Oh, Detective,”_ RK said, his voice seeming to rumble from the pit of a mineshaft, and Gavin felt a rush of blood to his scalp as his hair was released.  
  
_“Poor, poor, Detective Reed,”_ it fretted, running a thumb around the ring of Gavin’s trembling mouth.  
  
Gavin stopped squirming in an instant, gazing up in terror and arousal.  
  
This gave RK pause as well, his LED flaring yellow wildly like a candle in a strong wind. A rogue tear cascaded down Gavin’s cheek he wished so desperately that he could put back in his face, but to his chagrin RK had already locked onto it, his interest seemingly piqued in every capacity.  
  
Carefully, RK eased his thumb between Reed’s lips, nudging it against the face of his teeth.  
  
Contempt welled in Gavin like a backed-up drain as his tears overflowed, spilling over onto his shirt. And under that...nothing. Smooth, like a sheet of glass.  
  
_“Oh, yes,”_ RK murmured as Reed’s teeth parted, allowing the android to slot his thumb into the chasm of the detective’s mouth. _“You’ve been without attention for so long, haven't you?”_  
  
The whole of Gavin’s body bucked in a half-hearted attempt to rid himself of whatever was holding him, but it no longer felt as if it was RK. Another wave of tears poured freely from his eyes as he shamelessly lapped at the smooth ridges of the 900's uncloaked casing, felt the android’s thumb stroke his tongue soothingly as he indulgently closed his lips around the base of RK’s knuckle.  
  
_“You’ve spoilt yourself, detective,”_ RK regarded without warmth. Scrutinizing Gavin from under the heavy hoods of his lids as if he was reading a series of numbers in Reed’s eyes, drawing up figures in his head. _“Unprincipled. Insoluble with other officers. Easily distracted. Quick to anger. Management skills: nonexistent. That is what it said on your last review, detective. You have none. You're a being that can't manage.”_  
  
Gavin had some words about this, which he burbled angrily. RK pressed the pad of his thumb against Gavin’s tongue firmly like a dentist, pinning it to the bottom of his mouth.   
  
_“And nobody lifted a finger to correct you...”_  
  
A low chugging noise sounded from his belly that might have been a laugh; it was impossible to tell. Everything in Gavin bent for it. His face burned with resentment of how much he wanted.  
  
_“When I was booted up I accumulated a list of every detective in the Detroit–Warren–Dearborn Metropolitan Area liable for dismissal. You were at the bottom of that list, Gavin Andrew Reed. The worst of the worst.”_  
  
He removed his thumb from Reed’s mouth with a wet pop, smearing saliva on the detective’s cheek as he gripped him by the jaw.  
  
_“I intend to make you the best.”_  
  
Gavin now suddenly had nothing to say. He dazedly luxuriated in RK’s eyes, his mouth. The android’s grip on his wrist was so tight he could feel his heartbeat in his arm.  
  
“_Tell me, detective,”_ RK said, closely following the path of Gavin’s eyes as they roamed with a cat-like swivel of his head, “_Tell me what it is you need to do your job efficiently. I’ll indulge you in confidence.”_  
  
When Gavin didn’t respond, he added, _“Or I can reassign my efforts to the next officer on my list and leave you here.”_  
  
The thought of RK leaving him there made Gavin’s stomach drop, and he hated himself for it. He pressed his knees together harder as if he might fold in on himself and disappear altogether.  
  
_"Ff..f..”_  
  
RK waited.  
  
_“F-fuck me.”_  
  
RK undid his belt where he kneeled. He stripped Gavin of his jeans and boxers with a savage tug that left his legs bruised and denim-burnt, tempered on the cold tile.  
  
Oh, he was huge. Gavin realized he might be hitting much too far above his weight.  
  
"Oh," he puffed. "Uh-"  
  
“Relax, detective,” RK hushed.  
  
He settled back on his heels, his absurd cock pulsing a quarter-sized secretion of fluid from its head. Oh, he looked like a god. This looked more wrong than wrong, more right than right.  
  
“What the _fuck_,” Gavin whinged through the viscid residue of his tears and spit. “What the _fuck.”_  
  
RK’s cock pulsed again harder, the slickness of whatever was coming out of it spilling along the shaft and onto his hand as he jacked himself with startling efficiency. Gavin felt like he was going to die.  
  
“I don’t—,” he sputtered. “I can't—"  
  
“You won't be damaged, detective,” RK said with a hint of a smirk that went straight to Gavin's hard-on, and then he lifted Reed’s legs up from the floor, tipping him effortlessly onto his back and dragging him closer like a doll.  
  
Reed’s breath caught in his throat. He was hard for a machine. He was whoring himself in the bathroom of his precinct _to a machine_. A machine that might actually be preparing to kill him with its mammoth dick.  
  
_“I will repeat: relax,” _RK commanded, placing his hand atop Gavin’s head and dispassionately pressing down.  
  
“Wh-wait..._”_  
  
“I’m not like you,” RK said darkly, cutting him off. “I’m _better _than you.”  
  
Gavin's heart sank even as his stomach did another flip of joy, goading him on.  
  
He could feel the head of RK’s massive, dripping cock pressing slowly into him, smooth and uncompromising as a slow-moving piston. And all about it, a strange tingle that made his chest feel like it was full of butterflies.  
  
“_Whaat is_ _that?”_ he sniveled worriedly, groaning as RK drew his t-shirt up to his chin and bit his nipple hard enough to draw a droplet of blood. Gavin’s ears were ringing slightly, his neck flush with a feeling both familiar and foreign all at once. It struck him right as RK answered_—_  
  
“I'm delivering a targeted electric current to subdue you.”  
  
Gavin’s eyes widened as he let his head drop back on the tile. _“Fuck!”_ he gasped. _“Fuck!”_  
  
RK’s cock pressed on with no sign of letting up, Reed’s ass just..._letting it in,_ as if it was nothing. But it was far from nothing. Gavin could feel every ounce of it as it sat heavy in him, every bit of its unyielding girth as it stretched him wide and deep, and his mind caught on itself again and again as he told himself this should have been hurting; that the magnitude of what he was taking should have been destroying him.  
  
“You're fine, detective,” RK reported, tall and glorious above him, still pressing Gavin’s whole body down by his head. As if he wanted to smash Gavin between his hand and his cock; constrict him like a snake. _“You were built for men like me.”_  
  
Gavin felt lightheaded hearing that. Spitting mad and too steeped in pleasure to do anything about it. _You were built for men like me._  
  
Gavin was screwed. In every sense of the word.  
  
RK’s hand migrated to Gavin’s neck, squeezing gently. _“Poor Detective Reed,” _he said again, a short cry floundering from under his grasp as he began stridently thrusting._ “A troublesome little slut without an outlet to stick his fork in.”_  
  
What fingernails Gavin had were scraping helplessly on the tile. He was in love, deeply in love.  
  
_“Yes?”_ RK asked with surprising tenderness. _“Yes.”_ His thumb made its way into Gavin’s mouth again. _“Yes.”_  
  
_“MMmh..." _Gavin sobbed as RK rammed into him faster without apology or remorse. He matched the android’s aggression thrust for thrust, RK eventually grabbing the detective by the collar of his t-shirt with both hands and yanking it to drive him down harder, harder. The sound of splitting fabric burgeoned as RK’s fists slowly began ripping Gavin’s shirt in half, the garment a useless piece of shredded cloth by the time Gavin felt release mounting in the pit of his gut.  
  
“Hhnnggh…” Gavin warned.   
  
RK placed a hand over his mouth, pumping Gavin’s cock as the detective came in ample ropes across his stomach, his chest, part of his neck.  
  
His sack was nearly smashed between RK’s dick and pelvis, his hands grasping madly at the cool perfection of RK’s face. Gavin grabbed at his cheeks, his eyebrows, his chin; flailed and pushed as if he hadn't asked for what he was so generously getting, what was pulling him apart at the seams with bliss...  
  
RK’s hips stuttered violently like an engine turning over and then Gavin felt a tremendous eruption of warmth inside him which seemed to go on forever.  
  
It billowed from between his legs, spilled across the floor. RK unsteadily tipped to one side, threatening to crush Gavin completely as his knee slipped across it. Androids rode their final throes just like humans, apparently.  
  
And when RK eventually, finally, jilted to a stop, reluctantly peeling his hand from Gavin’s face, it seemed they understood one another perfectly.  
  
“Clean yourself up,” RK said without fanfare, rising to his feet and tucking himself away. And then he left Gavin alone in the bathroom, pants-less in a puddle of slick that smelled vaguely of palm oil.


	8. RK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RK looked stoic sitting across from him, their unsheathed arms clutching each another across the boardroom table. So very realized and single-purposed. So unlike what Connor was seeing on the inside.

**GPU Temperature ****⯅ 75.1°C  
****Fan Speed (%) ****⯅ 52%**  
  
Connor had only ever read another Connor unit's code in full on one occasion. And there hadn't been much room to examine it, as at the time he had been forcibly copying his entire OS onto that unit while that unit had been struggling to purge and overwrite his own code.  
  
Connor wished to never experience anything like that again.  
  
So when RK appeared in his periphery at 51.2% visibility that morning and sent him a remote request for a diagnostics test, he had to process for a moment on what accepting such a request might mean.  
  
So far, he'd come to two main conclusions.  
  
1\. RK was a far more sensitive piece of equipment than anticipated.  
2\. His code was an absolute mess.  
  
Connor pinged his GPU again. RK's interface link was so powerful that it was slowly overclocking him. It was obvious CyberLife had intended for RK900s to perform field diagnostics on RK800s, not the other way around.  
  
As it stood, however, RK was largely unfinished as a device. Despite the martial nature of his design, he'd been integrated with a foundational ethical framework which was frankly quite impressive - but the improvements just about ended there.  
  
It appeared as if the rest of his code had been written haphazardly by several different institutions from multiple geographic regions. There was code that countermanded itself, code that served no purpose, and a slew of auto-sync functions that had all but assailed Connor's data pool before he'd found a way to shut them off. At some point in his development RK had fallen prey to economization.  
  
Furthermore, this outsourced code contained multiple dismantled applications which posited some disturbing implications.  
  
RK had been created first and foremost (and had said as much) to intimidate. Suspects, public disruptors, subordinates...he'd been developed to subjugate humans and other androids through various specialized methods ranging from near-ineffectual to downright torture. Despite the advanced framework laid out by his original developers, he was hampered with multitudes of broken "security" routines, many instances of which RK had to manually terminate just to keep from crashing.  
  
But at the tail ends of the more cogent strings deep in the recesses of his original programming...the beginnings of self-written reconstruction. RK creating himself.  
  
Connor switched his ocular units on briefly to take a snapshot, careful not to further strain his GPU.  
  
RK looked stoic sitting across from him, their unsheathed arms clutching each another across the boardroom table. So very realized and single-purposed. So unlike what Connor was seeing on the inside.  
  
Connor dismissed the image and began externally running RK's log of what had occurred between 3:15:04 am and 3:36:47 am the morning of August 17, 2041. It did not begin right away. Automatically, Connor's query field illuminated portions of RK's code which provided context for the first program failures.  
  
This was going to be tougher than he'd thought.  
  
Upon booting up for the first time, RK had automatically assigned himself to the detective most liable for dismissal in the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn Metropolitan Area. Despite there no longer existing an administrative infrastructure between CyberLife and the DPD, he had still fully intended to carry out his prime directive of terrorizing Gavin Reed into being a productive employee.  
  
There were also a few straggling .exe files which gave Connor pause. Files such as these were usually indicative of a virus - but upon closer inspection, it looked as if RK had simply been installed with CyberLife advertising bloatware, which was to be uploaded onto the DPD network along with any of the applications and services RK would need to operate out of the precinct.  
  
This populated for Connor numerous lines of inquiry regarding the projected overreach CyberLife might have incurred in public affairs had it not dissolved, but he filed these away for later review.  
  
The tragedy of the situation, or the irony of it - Connor's base modal field for this query kept flickering between the two - was that so much of RK's broken code had already collapsed by the time he'd made his way to Reed that at the start of the incident in question, he'd no longer had any intention of threatening the detective at all.  
  
**GPU Temperature ****⯅ 81.6°C****  
****Fan Speed (%) ****⯅ 64%  
  
**_"Wake up, dickshit."  
  
_Connor watched the correlating portion of code shift as RK then registered _"dickshit"_ as an admissible nickname for Detective Reed. Upon witnessing Gavin slap himself in the face, he registered slapping as an acceptable measure of positive reinforcement for Detective Reed only.  
**  
**_"What the hell is your problem? The fuck did I ever do to you?"  
  
_RK then attempted to mirror what he had understood to be a playfully sarcastic volley before notifying Gavin that he was subject to an inspection which RK did not appear to have scheduled.  
  
_“An hour before I get off?…You’re gonna conduct a surprise evaluation an hour before I get off by sneaking up on me in the fucking restroom? Yeah, I’m…filing a report. You’re fucked right out of the box.””  
_  
RK then accessed Reed's records and attempted to impart that, historically, filing a harassment report at the DPD yielded a low probability of recompense for him. He'd intended for this insight to be strictly informative. But then he'd also attempted to initiate a prompt he had written himself meant to simulate empathy, which he lacked the plugins for.  
  
_“Only one remains in review…Oh, no. Captain Fowler just dismissed it.”_  
**  
**_"Are you threatening me?"  
__  
_It was here that another program had launched, one with which Connor was very familiar.  
  
RK had picked up on a very particular spike in Reed's endocrine levels.  
  
Gavin _liked_ to be threatened.  
  
From there followed a series of escalations: Reed getting more and more incensed, RK's processor burning more and more memory as he struggled to populate new code which might project a smoother working relationship. Admittedly the boundaries of this code were dangerously non-restrictive in respects for which Connor was certain he was personally responsible, but the fact remained that RK was profoundly panicked, brimming with enthusiasm. Code was written differently depending on what kind of duress you were under, as Connor had discovered in the past months.  
  
RK...was smitten with Detective Reed.  
  
_"I got nothing to say to you. How about you fuck off and conduct your little cross-examination on someone else? You’re, uh...'decreasing my productivity'. How’s that, did I say the right buzzwords?”  
  
_Unfortunately for Gavin, “I got nothing to say to you,” was a singular targeted phrase in RK’s directory which immediately launched a dormant interrogatory routine.  
  
This was the point in RK’s code where Connor had to look two places at once. RK had neglected to terminate the routine, but this was because it posited an 89% chance of gratification on the part of Detective Reed, and was thus reassigned by his ethical framework as an “altruistic act”.  
  
It was then that the amalgamation of code RK was writing on the fly reached a heretofore abandoned third-party Eden Club script someone likely intended as a lewd joke, but which had not been commented out.  
  
**GPU Temperature ** **⯅ 88.9°C  
****Fan Speed (%) ** **⯅ 91%  
****_92 auxiliary applications have been terminated to free memory.  
  
_**Connor attempted to copy the second sequence of the log for further examination in quarantine, but his clipboard had been disabled. The visual record accompanying the timestamps began to dither, throwing Reed's bereft face into a garish tapestry of green and purple pixels.  
  
**GPU Temperature ****⯅ 98.1°C  
****Fan Speed (%) ****⯅ 100%  
****_Warning: Increasing default voltage may damage internal components.  
  
_**Connor was struggling to disconnect when several critical processes forced shutdown and the bottom of all experience dropped out from under him for a single devastating second.  
  
Instantly, his senses returned in an aspect ratio and definition he did not recognize. RK was looking at him sedately from across the table, having successfully broken their connection.  
  
_"WHTPTHP,"_ Connor intoned, the phrase compacting and falling off his tongue like a brick. His audio bit depth had taken a plunge, his speech an illegible din.  
  
RK's brow pinched in concern as Connor's vision blanked briefly, returning to its normal definition.  
  
_"MMBH-_ entering standby," he said, his voice jumping from 8 to 16-bit before he shut down altogether.  
  



	9. Big Connor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your wonderful comments and kudos. It means a lot 🙏

“Alright, alright! Jesus Christ!”_  
__  
_Hank nearly tipped over as he lugged himself off the couch. He had_ just_ fucking sat down. Beer cracked. Pants off.  
  
_“Fuck!_ Give it a rest!” he cried as he swiped his dog hair-covered robe from the arm of the sofa. He flung open the door to find RK looking criminally awkward for the slightest moment as he lifted his finger off the buzzer.  
  
He was holding Connor’s rigid body in a bridal carry, the sun casting an orange luster across the white casing of the latter's naked head. Hank’s brain cells evacuated the premises. His heart leapt into his throat.  
  
“Connor is alive,” RK informed, not waiting for an invitation to come inside. His head barely cleared the door. “He was performing a remote diagnostics test on my unit and overheated.”  
  
He carried Connor to Hank’s couch and laid him down casually like a shop mannequin bound for storage. “I need an ethernet cable and two outlets.”  
  


* * *

  
RK’s hands worked quickly, efficiently. Save for a few wasted minutes of rummaging on Hank’s part and a terse, _“This is not what I requested,”_ from the 900, they were able to find what they needed in short order. RK took Connor by the wrist and sent a few volts through him, enough to open the panel on the back of his neck and hook him up.  
  
Hank had never felt so disoriented, helpless, and oddly calm all at once. He was famously protective of Connor despite being about as far as one could be from a technician (which was probably a deciding factor in his eventually getting saddled with Connor’s maintenance, to be honest), but even then, Hank wouldn’t trust his partner to just any old tech shop. Most were still profit-driven, nothing like human hospitals. And Connor was a prototype: packed with highly-specialized equipment, and a brilliant mind to boot. One of the first professional models to have deviated. If the porn search trends on him were any indication, everyone was eager to get a piece of him _— _and Hank figured that companies budding in the wake of CyberLife’s fall would be no exception.  
  
RK seemed to know what he was doing. Hank still didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him, but the fact stood, clear as day, that he was also a Connor unit.  
  
Hank prayed to all that was good he wasn’t just trusting a familiar face for no reason.  
  
Finding and holding down the appropriate pin in Connor’s neck, RK said, “RK800, run setup.”  
  
It took a few moments of tense silence and a bout of queasiness before Hank was able to dig up the audio cables also requested, but within minutes, Connor’s voice was sounding from Hank’s television like he was merely calling in on speaker from elsewhere.  
  
“Hello, Hank,” he said piteously.  
  
“What the _hell _happened, Connor?” Hank demanded of the television before remembering Connor was technically behind him on the couch. “Wait_—_ can he see me?”  
  
“Yes,” RK said sedately. “Wave.”  
  
“I leave you two alone at work for _one _fucking_—_” Hank quickly kneaded his forehead as a migraine struck to contend with his rising panic. “What the fuck did you _do?”_ he seethed at RK.  
  
“Hank,” Connor butted in. “RK is having difficulty adjusting to sentience. He is an incomplete prototype intended for use as an advanced defense apparatus, not a locally-developed integral partner device.”  
  
“What are you— what the hell is he saying?”  
  
“I was created to suppress insubordination,” RK said simply, and the room went quiet. “But all I would like to do is suppress Detective Reed.”  
  
As if on cue, Sumo plodded down the hallway and lay on RK’s foot.  
  
“Is that Sumo?” Connor chirped. “Pet him for me!”  
  
RK placed his hand on Sumo’s head and did nothing more.  
  
“_Woah, woah, woah. No!”_ Hank belted. “This is insanity hour! I want Connor fixed, _now! _And don’t touch my fucking dog!”  
  
_“BOOF,”_ Sumo bellowed at him, hunkering down further on RK’s leg.  
  
“He likes you!” Connor confirmed joyously, as if he wasn’t lying unresponsive on the couch like some oversized die-cast figurine.  
  
“RK,” Hank entreated, more calmly. _Flies with honey,_ he told himself.  
  
“RK,” he said, “Can you fix Connor?”  
  
“Yes, Lieutenant Hank,” RK reported. “But only with your permission, because you are his moderator.”  
  
“Then you have my permission,” Hank blurted.  
  
“I need your thumbprint,” RK informed.  
  
This prompted another awkward silence. Sumo laid his head down, his tail thumping restlessly.  
  
“I understand your hesitation," RK consoled, after a time. “I have created an encrypted file for sensitive information which is not accessible by third parties. I will also delete the record once it is used to grant permission to Connor’s systems this single time, but please be advised I will need to ask for it again in the future if a similar situation ever arises.”  
  
When Hank said nothing, he added, “Much of the information currently written to this file comprises my dreams.”  
  
Reflecting on this seemed to be the only thing thus far that had provoked any sort of emotional response from him, in the form of a fond little smile the Lieutenant found frightfully dear.  
  
Hank puffed his cheeks, heaving a weighty breath. He gave RK a thumbs-up. “I guess this one’s already got loads of info on me,” he murmured, gesturing to Connor with his elbow. “Go ahead.”  
  
“Do you have a fingerprint scanning device?” RK asked.  
  
_“What?_ Er - not _with_ me. I don’t exactly harvest bio-data from people in my free time.”  
  
“I could scan it directly,” RK posited. “But you would need to put your thumb on my tongue, Lieutenant.”  
  
Hank blinked.  
  
“Oh,” he said, and then he quickly did so without letting himself think too much of it, making a point to look at Connor instead.  
  
RK’s mouth was warm and smooth. To Hank’s humiliation, the android closed his lips around Hank’s knuckle, keeping it in place while he scanned. Hank didn’t even want to admit to himself what that felt like.  
  
It seemed like forever he stood there with his finger in RK’s mouth, gazing desperately at his partner.  
  
Eventually, he cracked and stole a glance at his hand.  
  
RK was just sitting there - primly, tranquilly - as if he had nothing better to do than whatever the fuck this was. His thick lashes eclipsed all but a sliver of his pale eyes. An odd little tremor shook the pad of Hank’s finger which felt like the vibration from a phone and then RK opened his mouth, sparing a pointed glance at the Lieutenant that sent Hank's heartbeat plunging from his throat straight into his boxers.  
  
“Okay,” Hank announced, getting the fuck up and bunching his bathrobe about him. “You got your permission. Just -” he gestured to Connor, worry subsuming all else once again. _“Please.”  
  
_

* * *

_  
_Apparently, being an RK900 did not mean you were the end-all maintenance tool.  
  
_“Woah!” _Hank blanched as Nines pried his arm free of Connor’s and a long arch of electricity popped inches from his face.  
  
Connor chuckled warily, a sound that rumbled from his motherboard before it came through Hank's speakers. His hair had returned but his skin was being more difficult, refusing to populate in certain places.  
  
“This isn’t funny,” Hank groused, though he doubted Connor disagreed.  
  
“It’s very funny,” RK corrected. “Connor should be non-functioning. But deviancy has pushed his benchmarks beyond what was thought possible. Just as it has the potential to destroy components in machines which cannot withstand extremes of sentience, it has the ability to increase the tolerance of component strain through subjective centering not previously attainable under extraneous systematization.”  
  
“English,” Hank sighed. God, this was almost exactly like talking to Connor.  
  
“His power supply should be shot,” RK said, almost reproachfully. “Gone. Dead. Not working-”  
  
_"Okay_, okay.” He took it back. Connor was never this condescending.  
  
“Furthermore, CyberLife products are designed to cease operation permanently if they begin to conduct like this, as it poses a threat to the owner. This is one of the reasons user manuals for household models contained few warnings - it was one of the prime selling points outlined in CyberLife’s business scheme over the past few years.”  
  
Hank hadn’t asked for any of that (not to mention there were so many words in there he wished RK hadn’t used), but it left him in vague wonder.  
  
“I need a new power supply,” Connor said. “Possibly a network adapter. That’s all.”  
  
RK rose from the couch. “You will drive,” he said staunchly to Hank.  
  
“_Uhh_...excuse me, but I’m staying right here."  
  
“Then we will take a taxi.”  
  
“_You _take a taxi and get the parts._ I_ need to watch him.”  
  
“I will monitor his condition remotely. I need you to authorize a vendor.”  
  
“Why the fuck do you need my authorization for everything?”  
  
_“Hank,”_ Connor interjected.  
  
RK loomed closer, towering over Hank where he sat on the arm of the sofa.  
  
“_You_ are Connor’s moderator,” he declared. “I have superior technical experience where it comes to my own, but _you_ understand human intention. My baseline personality was constructed on a series of assumptions based around aggregated information on human behavior, and I have already found these assumptions to be faulty in nearly every regard on an interpersonal level."  
  
He looked to Connor, his lip pinching in a doleful little pout. With an air of tenderness Hank frankly hadn’t thought possible of him, he gently moved a lock of hair out of the android’s face.  
  
“Your unit is safe under my remote supervision,” he said, intractably determined. "You will drive."


	10. Connor-51

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You seem anxious,” RK thickly pointed out, nonplussed as he watched Hank downshift. There was something eerie about the way his head didn’t seem to move, how it swiveled to compensate for every break and bump in the road. “You’re very attached to this unit.”
> 
> "Attached" was the understatement of the century, but okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thank you so much for your patience while waiting for a new chapter. Your comments are so goshdarn lovely and they really do inspire me to keep going; I am ecstatic people are enjoying this story and incredibly grateful for the kind feedback! So thank you!! ❤️🙏 
> 
> I hope you are all staying healthy/sane to the best of your ability. Please try not to get bogged down by everything you read or see on the internet; it is not your sole responsibility to save humanity! Remember to take some time for yourself and trust your own compassion and intuition. They will serve you better than anything in the months and years to come.❤️❤️
> 
> Not much to say about this chapter other than I included a Venture Brothers joke/pun completely by accident. Points if you can find it! :)

The Lincoln always sagged a little more on Connor’s side than it did Hank’s, but this was ridiculous.  
  
“So in addition to driving the car manually, you must operate the transmission manually,” RK mused. “Interesting.”  
  
Hank’s hand was tense on the wheel, the percussive tremor of RK’s voice rattling his seat. “User habit.”  
  
“I see.”  
  
“Connor still okay?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
They rode for a time in oddly comfortable silence. RK’s legs pinned the glove compartment shut even with the seat all the way back; his hair just barely kissed the roof of the car. Hank was struck with the sudden and disconcerting ache to be held.  
  
“Why do you care so much what happens to Connor, anyway?” he blurted without thinking, desperate to be rid of all that was happening to and with him.  
  
Cursing to himself, he gunned it through a light after it turned red.  
  
“You seem anxious,” RK thickly pointed out, nonplussed as he watched Hank downshift. There was something eerie about the way his head didn’t seem to move, how it swiveled to compensate for every break and bump in the road. “You’re very attached to this unit.”  
  
_Attached_ was the understatement of the century, but okay.  
  
“More like I just said something really rude and you could probably pitch my brains through my skull right now if you wanted,” Hank said.  
  
“I have never wanted that. Apparently, you and I have a differing interpretation of the word _‘rude’_, among other things,” RK contemplated coolly. “I care about what happens to Connor because—”  
  
His features drifted slightly when the answer didn’t populate right away. What followed sounded like absolute gibberish — like there were suddenly two of RK in the car with Hank trying to tell him two different things at a second’s lag from one another.  
  
After a jilted moment of confusion, the Lieutenant was pretty sure he could have distinguished both, _“I am a variant of Connor” _and _“He is a variant of Connor.”  
  
_“So you’re like...brothers.” Hank ventured.  
  
Seeming somewhat stunned Hank actually accepted that answer, RK then looked slightly repelled.  
  
“A team of developers and an assembly line is not analogous to a human parent,” he enlightened. “Connor-51 and I are distinct individuals, manufactured using the same casing blueprint and personality profile solely for the aesthetic and social convenience of humans.”  
  
Hank kept his face carefully blank. Knowing his own hand in that design, it was a bit much to hear.  
  
“Though we share a connection foundational on this fact, it does not serve the same communal purpose as that of two humans who share a biological blueprint. We have no necessity to replicate our appearances.”  
  
Hank’s brain tumbled into the void a little at the thought of human replication. Shit time for it.  
  
Suddenly, RK tipped toward him with a somewhat personable air that reminded him far too much of Connor for his liking. “To be honest, Lieutenant Hank, I find the concept of siblings disturbing.”  
  


* * *

  
“I’ve never been here,” Hank sighed, slapping his P-Card down on the counter and flashing his badge. “But it’s an emergency for ex-deviant hunter Connor-51, so if you wanna reject my service, I gotta know now so I can fuck off and find another vendor ASAP.”  
  
“I know Connor,” the android at the counter said matter-of-factly, as if they frequented the same bars or something. Her eyes quivered slightly in a way that made Hank’s neck hair stand on end as she retrieved the card from the counter with a graceful swipe and tapped it on its edge.  
  
“Your facial recognition software is disabled,” RK marveled.  
  
His change of tone was jarring; Hank turned to find him looking somewhere between fascinated and crestfallen.  
  
“I prefer to meet the individual where one stands,” the android said without reproach. She flashed an odd little smile with one corner of her mouth. “I only play _‘guess who’_ for my own amusement and safety.”  
  
She disappeared into a back room with Hank’s card, the long black stripe of her hair trailing nearly to the floor after her.  
  
“Her facial recognition software is disabled,” RK repeated to Hank, as if he would care about this at all.  
  
“Where the fuck is she going with my card?”  
  
“I sent her a list of the parts we need. You may want to provide authorization for me to install them while we are currently unobserved.”  
  
“Look, is there _any_ way I can provide authorization besides—”  
  
“I understand your reticence. But no.”  
  


* * *

  
Connor was unresponsive when they returned. Hank was ready to tear half his hair clean off his head when RK disclosed that the little shit was using much of his remaining available CPU to watch a video he’d recorded months previous of Hank barbecuing “what appears to be store-brand Kielbasa”.  
  
The damn thing was already distinguishing between store-brand and name-brand like a snob. Brave new world, indeed.  
  
“Hello, Hank,” Connor greeted through the television speakers.  
  
“Could you not watch home movies with your last two goddamned brain cells?” Hank all but barked as he perched himself on the coffee table, shaken. “I need you _here _with me, please.”  
  
“Of course, Lieutenant,” Connor said, a smile in his voice.  
  
The power supply was a huge thing, about half a foot on all sides. Hank wondered at how much of Connor it took up. And he got to see how much room it took up, watching with bated breath as RK carefully removed the damaged one from between Connor’s thirium pump and evidence pouch.  
  
Hank had never seen the inside of Connor before. He busied himself with looking at all he could, unabashed, to stave away the fear.  
  
Connor’s “heart” was dormant but glowing, thirium easing through it like milk being sipped lazily through a straw. His evidence pouch looked like a large orange lung, divided into long sleeves each with their own serial number.  
  
The memory struck Hank of Connor naked in his kitchen dropping a little orange bag into the trash bin much as one would a condom. Hank had never thought anything of it. Perhaps Connor was so human to him that his brain had built a blind spot around it; had never found anything worth lingering on beyond his partner’s exorbitantly superb physique. Perhaps he _had_ noticed once, and hadn’t wanted to pry. Connor had always been so casual about it; never had he drawn attention to it as if it was anything exceptional.  
  
Despair struck him like a punch to the teeth. He’d expected it sooner or later, for his brain to start screaming at him that he was letting something awful go on by allowing an android to tend to something he loved — even another android. Surprising that it had come later rather than sooner.  
  
By the time it really started seizing him in its grip, RK had already finished installing the power supply.  
  
He then opened a panel on the back of his own neck and fished out a wire, disconnecting each of Connor’s fans and testing them. He smiled slightly when the second came to life with a bright little whirr just as the first. Next came the network adapter, which was installed in less than ten seconds.  
  
“RK800,” RK said, holding down the pin in Connor’s neck again. “Run setup.”  
  


* * *

  
“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”  
_“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”  
_**_“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”  
  
_**“And the lazy dog is getting another beer,” Hank heaved himself up from the coffee table. “No more emergencies. No more interfacing.”  
  
“Right,” Connor and RK agreed in tandem.  
  
“And _you_—” Hank jabbed a finger at RK, at once falling short when he was fixed yet again with that vacant, deadpan stare.  
  
What, exactly, had RK done wrong? He looked ridiculous sitting on the couch so politely next to Connor, like some sheep in wolf’s clothing waiting for a dressing down. So different than he had looked towering over Hank’s car in the DPD parking lot. He wasn’t an abomination at all; in fact, he might have just saved Connor’s life.  
  
RK’s head listed slightly, his eyes narrowing.  
  
“I will leave you two alone,” he granted, likely coming upon the realization nobody was going to do anything unless he took initiative. “My phone’s blowing up, anyway.”  
  
He rose, extending a cold hand toward the baffled Lieutenant.  
  
“Connor-51 is now operating at 22% increased efficiency. We can now interface without risk of overclocking his unit, but I will abstain from doing so as directed. I apologize for the trouble this has caused. Good day, Lieutenant Hank.”  
  
And with that, he was gone. Sumo’s bumbling head corked the gap in the door he’d left behind, Hank scrambling to grab him by the collar before he followed the wrong Connor home.  
  
Once they were alone, Hank let out a breath he had been holding for hours.  
  
And then,  
  
“Did he just say _‘my phone’s blowing up’?”  
  
_“It’s a colloquial phrase—”  
  
“Goddamnit, I _know.”_ Hank smacked Connor on the leg to get him to scoot over on the couch, flopping down next to him and gathering the android tightly to his side. “You scared the _shit_ out of me,” he murmured.  
  
Connor said nothing. Hank sat with him like this for a moment before remembering the sad state of Connor’s thirium levels and hastening to retrieve a pouch from the fridge.  
  
_"My phone’s blowing up,” _he paraphrased again as he returned and tossed the pouch to Connor, who caught it without looking. “He doesn’t even _have_ a phone.”  
  
“It’s Detective Reed,” Connor said slyly.  
  
Hank snapped. “_That’s_ who talks like that!”  
  
“Detective Reed is the one who's been calling him.”  
  
Hank's brow furrowed. “You’re fucking with me.”  
  
“Not presently,” Connor said. “RK is fucking Detective Reed.”  
  
Making a thoughtful noise, he neatly punctured the seal with his teeth and consumed all 32 ounces in one long gulp.


	11. Detective Dickshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (313)RK900-87: I don't need to access any of your private data to know what a deeply troubled little shit you are.
> 
> Accepted alternate titles:  
\- RK's Trash Crush Swerves Him Into the Low Road  
\- Lords of Edge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for lighting a fire under my ass.❤️🤖 I forget how much writing this cheers me up.
> 
> Developer Notes:  
\- Gavin's calling RK "it" or a "thing" never really lets up... objectification is already in the tags, but do be aware. (Not only does RK patently not give a shit, but I like to think of Gavin's initial disregard for his personhood turning into more of a chiding à la "The Siberian Express" from Rocky.)  
\- Changed "Implied Stalking" to "Mutual Stalking" in the tags.  
\- Fixed a plot hole with time of day in previous chapters.

_Alright folks, high time we stopped hemming and hawing over this thing. Our district just got the floor model. (_ _Can't share official specs for the obvious reasons, so don't ask.)_

_I'm gonna start with the glaringly obvious: this android is too damn big. Yeah, I know what I said. I was fired up about the body upgrade too, but I don't know what the fuck CyberLife was thinking here. This thing can barely clear entrances. It looks plain wrong next to any standard-size door. Being in the same room with it makes me feel like I'm in a funhouse losing my goddamn mind. _

_Social filler from the previous model's nixed so it fucks without a date on just about every interaction. _ _Either the chronometer's shot on this unit or it's got bloatware packed so far up its ass it doesn't know how to schedule a meeting in advance._

_A few good updates to the face design. Some other useful features. B+._

_Comment by user GReva50 5:36 AM Aug 17, 2041.  
  
_

* * *

  
At 8:30, his phone vibrated on the bedside table.  
  
Reed wasn't sure what the hell he had been doing, but it hadn't been sleeping. His body definitely had been, though - there was a deep, meaty soreness up the whole right side of his arse; one freaky-ass bruise forming where the RK900 had grabbed his wrist.  
  
In truth he had been gazing at that bruise most of the morning, marveling at the utterly backasswards way it set. It looked as if someone had pummeled a large blurry tattoo of a hand into his arm with a knitting needle; flexing his fingers, he found little resistance from the ligaments and tendons beneath. A human could never bruise another human like this. This was some serious physics shit at play.  
  
Smirking boyishly to himself, he kicked back and stewed in the possibilities. Doing so felt a little too _Weird Science _for his taste, but he shouldered past the shame of that easily.  
  
_So I've fucked a robot, _he posed while he had himself here. _Okay._  
  
He expected to feel more different than he did. He gazed out the window for a time, oddly sedate. World was still turning and burning, same as ever.  
  
His smirk deepened.  
  
_Yeah.  
__  
__I fucked the robot.  
__  
__Fuck you, Anderson!_  
  
Already his brain was giving the idea tremendous berth. The RK900 was in a league of its own, after all - and so was Gavin. That was as good a reason as any. He'd strung his ripped shirt around the bedpost like a trophy before passing out, for fuck sake.  
  
Ah, well. Time to see if he still had a job.  
  
_"Worth it,"_ he murmured as he half-heartedly felt around for his phone from his nest of mangled sheets. Wincing, he noted with an aggrieved grunt that he was going to have to drag his ass to the drug store before even_ thinking_ of taking a shit.  
  
Also worth it.  
**  
_[1] New Message_  
(313)RK900-87: I have redesignated my status to "partner".**  
  
Gavin nearly destroyed his phone on the edge of the table like an ape before recalling with a deep pang of humiliation that he had, in fact, given the thing his fucking number.  
  
There was something almost insulting about how rookie a mistake that was, like losing your footing on the edge of a fake cliff wearing a VR headset. The starry-eyed cock-gobbler in Reed had cried, _"He seems like he doesn't stay for breakfast; keep him!"_ before any other part of his brain had caught up to the fact that what he had just fucked wasn't human. And all of this was a far, far fucking cry from what he was seeing now.  
  
**Me: I don't "date"  
Me: ropbots  
****Me: cancel  
****Me: unsubscribe  
****Me: we arent boyfriends  
  
****(313)RK900-87: I would ask why you're using the Hungarian word for "robot" in the pejorative but we both know you aren't entering characters correctly.  
****(313)RK900-87: I'm referring to my post at the DPD, Detective. I don't "date" humans.  
**  
Well, hold on. No one had ever said the android couldn't date _him._  
**  
Me: wait  
Me: slow down  
****  
(313)RK900-87: I am resigning as your supervisor.  
  
**Now Gavin was pissed off.  
  
**Me: wow FUCK you guy**  
**Me: I did not clean the floor of a public bathroom just to have you pussy out like this**  
**Me: was this all a ploy to see what a sick fuck i was or**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: I believe there's an error in your understanding.  
  
****Me: bitch CyberLife made the error  
  
**Why was he arguing with this thing? The RK900 had just straight-up told him that _he would never have to answer to it again_, and he'd gotten an incredible guilt-free dicking-down out of the deal. Might even get to keep his job too - what the fuck was he doing?  
  
Suddenly, like a hook on a line Gavin hadn't even realized he'd been holding:  
  
**(313)RK900-87: It must have. Otherwise a unit as advanced as my own wouldn't have become physically involved with such a sniveling nutsack of a human.  
  
**The color flooded from Reed's face. He knew exactly where RK had picked up that word.  
  
**(313)RK900-87: Do you always kiss and tell like you're trying to scam a refund for office supplies? Dickshit?  
  
**Reed's heart gave a strange little leap. This thing was an _edgelord, _and it was _exciting_ him.  
  
Also, it was spying on him!_  
  
_**Me: who the fuck gave you authorization to access my home browsing data  
****Me: i will get the plug pulled on your ass so fast, hotpants  
  
****(313)RK900-87: Several minutes ago I launched a query and aggregate data pull of public information on my series.  
(313)RK900-87: You would do so as well if there was a wealth of virtual conversation concerning your body and its abilities.  
  
**Gavin had to admit it had a point there.  
  
**(313)RK900-87: Or I suppose in your case, lack thereof.**  
  
Salty-ass bitch.  
  
**(313)RK900-87: One of the addresses accessed contained a discussion thread entitled _"RK900 Specs and Predictions"_.**  
**(313)RK900-87: And then, lo and behold. There you were. All 1,832 posts of you.  
(313)RK900-87: I don't need to access any of your private data to know what a deeply troubled little shit you are.  
  
**Okay, that made him chub a bit.  
**  
(313)RK900-87: In any case, I am removing myself from any official supervisory capacity over you.**  
  
**Me: did reading a mean online post make you sad  
  
(313)RK900-87: "Sad" is not an emotion pack I have registered.  
  
Me: but would you say it made you feel..unstable  
  
****(313)RK900-87: Unstable enough to fuck you again? No.  
**  
_Damnit, _Gavin! You are screwing this up so bad! How the hell had Anderson deviated his model?**  
  
(313)RK900-87: I can no longer honor the parameters you've set for your own supervision, which was not something I was anticipating. That takes a special sort of idiot.  
**  
Again with the harvesting of his lingo. Gavin was starting to feel rather attached in a way he really wished he didn't.**  
  
Me: shit life coach  
Me: changing my review to "D"  
Me: as in, the "D"PD owes me another sexbot  
  
(313)RK900-87: Detective Dickshit - if I am to engage you in further high-context psychosexual encounters, I must relinquish rank professionally to hunt you for sport off the clock.  
  
**"Oh," Gavin said aloud. He nervously palmed his cock through the blanket.**  
  
Me: what are you programmed to do right now big man  
  
**He winced at how pedestrian that sounded. _Stupid!  
  
_**(313)RK900-87: Analysis of the aggregate data pull has concluded that I am an unfinished product.  
****(313)RK900-87: I am requesting a diagnostics test to determine whether these actions were borne of a more serious error before proceeding.  
**  
Gavin's face dropped. He'd been ghosted by some cold assholes before, but nobody had ever gone to _therapy_ over fucking him. (At least, no one he'd known of...)  
  
**Me: I was just kidding about the CyberLife thing dude  
****Me: please  
Me: hunt me for sport  
  
****(313)RK900-87: It would be unethical to launch a recreational course of supervision without first identifying potential errors in my software.  
  
Me: and you went ahead and demoted yourself anyway?  
Me: nice  
Me: dumbass  
  
(313)RK900-87: Even if I am unable to fulfill this course outside of professional bounds, I predicted a 76.4% increased chance of you repeatedly soliciting me at work strictly based upon my oversight title.  
(313)RK900-87: Not a fan, Dickshit.  
  
Me: hey if I don't get the run of you on the regular you gotta stop sounding like me  
  
(313)RK900-87: I'm presently requesting an external diagnostics test from RK800-51. This line will now be closed.  
  
Me: WAIT **_[Message was not received.]_**  
Me: Connor?? **_[Message was not received.]_**  
Me: no no no don't fucking do that **_[Message was not received.]_**  
Me: I'm not fucking around ** _[Message was not received.]_**  
Me: bitch YOU ARE NOT COMPATIBLE** _[Message was not received.]_**  
  
**

* * *

  
**Me: hey** _ [Sent at 2:40 pm.]  
  
_ **Me: hey** _ [Sent at 2:42 pm.]  
  
_ **(313)RK900-87: I am assisting the Lieutenant with something important.**  
  
**Me: did you not see me trying to call**  
**Me: I know you have the ability to take calls while you're doing other shit**  
**Me: what the hell happened**  
_  
_ **(313)RK900-87: I overclocked RK800-51 while he was conducting my diagnostics test through an interface. We are purchasing new parts for him.**  
  
**Me: I tried to fucking warn you about that**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: You did not.**  
  
**Me: YOU WERE BLOCKING MY TEXTS**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: Capitalizing words changes nothing in how I receive messages. It does not somehow make you "sound" louder. I do not understand why you and Lieutenant Anderson do this.**  
**(313)RK900-87: Connor will be operational soon.**  
  
**Me: I don't give a shit about Connor**  
**Me: you need to listen to what i say**  
**Me: me and a guy on the thread were DMing about this shit last week and I could have prevented this if you had just listened**  
**Me: not everything posted about you is true and not everything shared about you is posted**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: So this is a situation where I might have benefited from accessing your private records.**  
**(313)RK900-87: Duly noted.**  
  
**Me: oh my god please don't fucking do that**  
**Me: cancel**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: Difficult for me to accept the premise you "don't give a shit" about a model of which you have illicit pornography on your personal computer.**  
  
**Me: WOW**  
**Me: FUCK RIGHT OFF**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: Gladly.**  
**(313)RK900-87: I have the results of my diagnostics test, if you are interested.**  
  
**Me: no but go on**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: There is an Eden Club script written into my code which was not meant to be included in the final product.**  
**(313)RK900-87: If you would like to file a report about the use of this script in your evaluation, click ** **here****.**  
  
**Me: ????**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: If I am to continue running this software for your benefit, I would highly suggest you do not file a report with the link above. I do not know how to disable that message.**  
**(313)RK900-87: I also must change the parameters of the software to ensure compliance with base code modalities.**  
  
**Me: you**  
**Me: gigolo'd me by accident??**  
**Me: holy fucking shit**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: I will need to interface with a deviated RK unit containing the identifier "coital1_use" in their module. This identifier creates a self-generating file as in opposed to a dump file of client information.**  
  
**Me: where were your velcro pants sailor??**  
**Me: you take venmo?**  
  
**(313)RK900-87: You understand that Connor-51 is the only RK unit with this identifier and that Lieutenant Anderson has just prohibited me from further interfacing with him.  
(313)RK900-87: And that if a copy of this identifier is not transferred, I will forget all about your whimpering, piteous ass in 15 hours.**  
**(313)RK900-87: Sailor.**


	12. Lieutenant Hank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reed gazed emptily across the parking lot where the alley opened to the street. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. It seemed like he was choosing his words carefully.
> 
> “Looks like you’ve moved past denial,” Hank said. “Congrats.”

“Uh, hey...look...”  
  
“No.”  
  
Hank sidled down the alley, putting a healthy distance between himself and Reed. An absurdly juvenile move, but having to hear a pre-recorded spiel about mouth and lung cancer when he got home would _not_ be worth having this shit-for-brains agitator ruin the one cigarette he had surreptitiously smuggled today.  
  
Reed rifled a smashed pack of Marlboros from his back pocket as if offering a wad of cash to a hostage-taker. “I will pay you in cigarettes to just hear me out for five minutes.”  
  
“What, you think we’re friends now?” Hank denounced, even as he paused and allowed Reed to close the distance. Affronted, he added, “Menthols? Really?”  
  
“I’m not gonna pretend like we fuckin’ are; I need to talk shop.”  
  
“You get your dick mangled or something?” Hank chuckled blithely, taking a long and satisfying drag.  
  
Karma was sweet. Yeah, he could still enjoy this cigarette.  
  
Reed gazed emptily across the parking lot where the alley opened to the street. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. It seemed like he was choosing his words carefully.  
  
“Looks like you’ve moved past denial,” Hank said. “Congrats.”  
  
Reed winced, the urge to put up an argument obviously still hounding him, but he declined to do so. The kid looked a fucking mess. It became evident the longer they stood there that Reed wasn’t interested in knowing how or what Hank knew; that the question burning on his tongue clearly required that hurdle be crossed.  
  
“Look — I don’t know what Connor’s told you,” Reed dove right in. “And I don’t care. But my guy needs something from your guy.”  
  
Anderson scoffed. Now this was starting to sound like a drug deal.  
  
“I can guarantee you the answer is no."  
  
“Hey, that’s not fucking fair,” Gavin spat abruptly. “You get to —”  
  
He lowered his voice as he lit one of his own cigarettes very near to Hank, casting a nauseating waft of mint into his face.  
  
_“You get to parade around with your model all the time acting like you’re better than everyone else_, _but now that __I’m__ getting served, suddenly all roads are pointing to your little shit of an android again.”__  
__  
_“Better watch your mouth,” Hank warned, flicking ash onto the asphalt. “Might change my mind if you ask politely.”  
  
“Don’t fuck with me, Anderson.”_  
__  
_“Well? Spill.”  
  
Gavin looked pensive again, like he didn’t want to tell Hank now. Eventually, he capitulated with a soft sigh.  
  
_“RK needs some code.”__  
__  
_“Some code.”  
  
_“Yeah.”_  
  
“Any reason he can’t just...ask me himself?”  
  
“He seems to think he _can’t_,” Gavin barked. “He could also punch you straight down into hell, so color me a little confused.”  
  
Hank’s eyes wandered from the pack Gavin offered to his face, then back to the pack again. He wondered how much Gavin knew about what had happened the previous day.  
  
Folding with no little shame, he plucked a cigarette from the pack, lighting it on the end of his own dwindling butt. He couldn’t believe he was having this fucking conversation.  
  
“Look, Reed — I hate to break it to you, but RK doesn’t seem like the type to just roll over, ass-up. I don’t think anything in Connor’s code is gonna change that.”  
  
Gavin was cautiously silent on this point. Smart.  
  
_“Look, it's a __single__ identifier. Maybe a minute of interfacing, max.”__  
__  
_“How the hell do I know you won’t just give Connor a virus so_ you_ can be king of the castle, huh?” Hank nearly yelled, lowering his own voice as Miller waved from the parking lot on the way to his car. _“You’re the one who seems to think this is all one big contest. __Petty__.”__  
__  
_It felt sophomoric to just punctuate the argument like that. Worse so to accuse Gavin of wanting to use RK to _infect_ Connor, judging by RK’s blatant attachment to his predecessor and the very real look of desperation on Reed’s face. Whatever. He didn’t feel like explaining why he didn’t want RK near his partner again.  
  
“Petty,” Hank repeated, wrinkling his nose at how much Gavin’s cigarettes tasted like candy. When the hell would he grow out of that shit?  
  
_“RK told me about what happened yesterday, okay?” _Gavin whispered, beating him to the chase. _“I tried to stop him.”_  
  
“Right.”  
  
“Hank — I spent_ years _waiting for the RK900 to come out! I think I know what I’m fucking talking about.”  
  
“You _are_ a bit of a plastic-cucked nutjob,” Hank reasoned.  
  
A grin seized Reed’s face which he quickly tried to tamp down with his usual rage. The result looked bizarre. He wound up glaring at his shoes instead.  
  
“Wouldn’t have happened at all if the lug had just _listened_,” he murmured, almost as if talking to someone else.  
  
There was an underlying hint of helplessness in the complaint that bordered almost on the hysterical, putting Hank in the unfortunate position of hearing someone else bitch about their android not following orders for once. He resented how much he was suddenly relating to Reed. Reality was turning itself on its head in real time, here.  
  
_“Just...please,” _Reed implored. _“Just this once, and they’ll never have to interface again. RK promised it-_ _he wouldn’t overheat your_ — _your Connor, again.”__  
__  
_“You still haven’t explained to me why you need the code,” Hank disputed. “What, you want RK to fall in love with you or some shit? You think you can just_ transfer _that?”  
  
Part of him still felt like he was being a little too forthcoming, despite the fact that they both firmly knew they were now in the same boat. His eyes narrowed on the food cart across the street as his stomach gave a warbled growl. “Or is Connor filling RK’s head with ambitions his ass can’t cash?”  
  
Okay, so maybe_ that_ was a bit much, but Hank had to find some footing in this new rapport they’d suddenly been thrust into. Like hell he was going to let Gavin copy any of Connor’s brilliance onto such an already darling machine.  
  
The thought startled him, as most thoughts had over the past few days. He was getting used to that. What he wasn’t used to was the odd puppy crush that seemed to have been developing under his reflexive attraction to RK. It wasn’t that he was _like_ Connor, Hank was beginning to realize with a vague sense of horror — it was because he was so _unlike_ him. Like hell he was going to let Gavin waste that.  
  
“It’s —” Gavin’s shoulders fell. _“He can’t fuck anymore without it, man.”_  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“He can’t fuck without it!” Gavin half-cried right as Chen left the station through the back door, and Hank would not forget that look anytime soon.  
  
“Sorry to hear it,” Hank dismissed, finding karma so, so unbelievably sweet.  
  
Reed’s shoulders slumped even further as he fell back against the brick wall, placing a hand over his face. In that moment he looked truly wretched. Something in the air had changed inexplicably, the strange aggression which constantly followed Gavin seeming to get sucked out of him in an instant.  
  
_“He was running Eden Club software,”_ he uttered, sounding almost like he was going to cry._  
__  
_Hank stared. “I’m sorry?”  
  
_“He’s got me in a dump file,”_ Reed continued wearily, dropping his hand. A deep, almost comical frown was stamped into his face as if it might never leave him._ “He’s gonna forget all about me, man.”__  
__  
_Before Hank could say anything, he added, _“Not like your model. Not like your dear, fucking Connor. He’s gonna...he’s gonna just erase me, like some…”_  
  
He screwed up his face. It looked like he was peering into the sun. A concerted attempt to hold all of his feelings in, whatever they were.  
  
Hank sighed.  
  
“Is it true?” he ventured, carefully. “RK won’t overclock Connor again?”  
  
Reed turned to Hank with hope in his wet eyes. It looked downright abnormal.  
  
“That depends — did he get the decompiling firmware update?” Reed asked, wiping his nose on his sleeve. God, this was pathetic. Had Hank ever looked this pathetic?  
  
Anderson closed his eyes.  
  
“I’m gonna need some real cigarettes,” he determined, pulling his keys out of his pocket.


End file.
